


personalyze

by sonshineandshowers



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder, Caregiver Fatigue, Case Fic, Coping, Crisis, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Whump, F/M, Found Family, Grief, HEAVY discussion of suicidal ideation, Hallucinations, Loss, Mental Health Issues, NO Graphic Depictions of Suicide, Nightmares, Overdose, Panic Attacks, Parent-Child Dynamics, Past Inpatient Treatment, Past Substance Abuse, Past Thoughts of Medication Abuse, Romance After Loss, Social Isolation, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Team as Family, Trauma, Triggers, heavy discussion of suicide, past loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:08:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24175618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonshineandshowers/pseuds/sonshineandshowers
Summary: A month and a half after Eve's death and Endicott's demise, there are many changes — some subtle, some poignant. Gil spends more time with Jessica, Malcolm spends more time alone, and the whole team gets called in to work on a case that hits too close to home.CONTENT WARNING: There is significant discussion of suicidal thoughts and suicide in this story. There are some descriptive moments of crisis, triggering, and suicidal ideation. Intentionally, there are no graphic depictions of suicide, with suicide discussed as a past event.
Relationships: Eve Blanchard/Malcolm Bright, Gil Arroyo/Jackie Arroyo, Gil Arroyo/Jessica Whitly, JT Tarmel/Tally Tarmel
Comments: 8
Kudos: 42
Collections: Prodigal Whump Fic Exchange - Spring 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TrenchcoatRats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrenchcoatRats/gifts).



> For the Whump Fic Exchange, TrenchcoatRats requested some achy emotional whump/angst. A gigantic thank you to the wonderful MissScorp for all the hard beta work and great suggestions for making this better. I wouldn't have been able to get it to this point without you.
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: There is significant discussion of suicidal thoughts and suicide in this story. There are some descriptive moments of crisis, triggering, and suicidal ideation. Intentionally, there are no graphic depictions of suicide, with suicide discussed as a past event.
> 
> IF you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). https://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org. Emergency: 911 For Global Crisis Centers: https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/

Alex sipped at the straw of her large iced coffee drowned in sugar and cream ’til it formed coffee milk. Her back hunched, both hands still pecked away coding the latest feature request while she drank. More padding around images — an eye-roll worthy use of five minutes of her time. Efficiency level: 100%. 120% if her boss ever came down to ask.

“Did you get that patch in?” Misha checked, only a tuft of his receding hair visible above the monitor.

“Deployed this morning,” Alex replied, clacking at her keys, fixing a formatting error to pass validation. “Next set of grunt work, huh?”

“More metrics.” Poppity-pop, bippity-whack, the rhythmic peppering of keys chattered between the engineers.

“Any hits?”

“No.”

“Maybe next experiment.” Alex committed her changes and pulled the next defect from the list to resolve. Defects, new features, reports, repeated tasks to automate — they were all in their queue. Her job was to take the highest priority one from the top and implement it. Not much decision-making involved.

“Maybe.”

If the experiment was successful, they’d been promised private cubes in the windowless D-wing. A whole step up from their E-wing basement, dubbed the Exit. The only place left to go down from there was fuckin’ out.

She’d prefer up. It kept a roof over her head, and even had a pingpong table. “Where we celebrate,” her boss told her on her first day.

What? She had yet to find out.

* * *

Gil was the only person left in the precinct late on a Friday night. He twisted his ring round and round his finger, looking at the photo of Malcolm and Jackie on his corner table like she'd reach through and hold him, whispering comfort into his ear until he calmed. “I know you made me promise,” he said aloud, her memory winding a tight grip on his stomach. “But it’s so hard,” he admitted, taking another sip of his whiskey.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. _Leaving now — be to you in 10_.

He was taking Jessica to dinner, but they had both gotten held up, he with a case, she with a seemingly endless stream of lawyers. Which was probably for the best, as Gil still wasn’t ready for the prospect. His palm sweated around the glass and he wiped it off on his pants.

This was Jessica. They had history. She was familiar. She’d helped take care of him for weeks after his stabbing. They spent a lot of their free time at each other’s houses. He could do this.

He kept spinning his ring.

Savored more whiskey.

Looked to Jackie like he needed permission to go out with another woman four years later.

And waited for the pain in his stomach to fade.

It didn’t.

He continued drinking until his watch hit quarter to eight and went downstairs to wait for her.

* * *

Gil's stomach rolled at the difference of going out to a restaurant instead of one of their houses as if the starting gun would go into him instead of the air. Even though it was low-key Italian, it still represented a step he hadn’t taken.

A date.

And not the kind he could rip off the calendar the next day.

Jessica deserved the best, and goddamn if he wouldn’t do what he could to give it to her. He wiped off his palms again, hoping she wouldn't notice their outing had gotten under his skin and turned on the sprinkler of renewed experiences.

“Is this spot okay?” Jessica asked, sitting in the long booth running along the full wall of the restaurant. Her black dress hugged the points between her arms and shoulders, revealing an expanse of soft skin across her chest and up her neck to where simple interlocking gold ovals brushed against the sides. One of her more understated looks, but they didn't dress up like this at home. She had put effort into sharing her beauty that he could appreciate, even if cuddled together in their pajamas would have been just fine.

“Yeah.” He took off his coat and set it on the back of the chair.

“Come sit next to me.” Jessica patted the bench.

Gil smiled and slid in beside her. "You look nice," he shared, running his fingers over the silky material at her waist.

"Thanks," she said, her red lipstick pulling away in a smile that revealed her teeth. "Just a little thing." She gestured to the table. "Do you want to pick the wine?” Jessica asked.

“You go ahead.” He handed her the list, content to sit in her company. His stomach settled a little with their sides touching instead of being sequestered across the table.

With her free hand, Jessica squeezed his on top of his knee. “You alright?”

He was stiffer than normal and they'd been mostly quiet in the car. Of course she had picked up on something. "Yeah.” Gil nodded and squeezed her hand back. He knew his palm must still be a little clammy, but it was Jessica — she would understand if she picked up on it.

“We’ll have a bottle of the Pinot Noir,” Jessica requested when the waiter stopped by. He read them off the specials and left. “It’s like we’re teenagers again,” she teased, her wonderful smile coming back.

Gil smirked. “I think we had very different childhoods.”

“Like the girls weren’t chasing you.” She brushed the shoulder of his sweater.

“Not into restaurants.”

“Expensive booze at house parties.”

“Cheap, and about the same," he compared, recalling more reckless days of pooling together whatever money they could scrounge for a 24-pack.

The waiter brought their wine back, let Jessica test, and poured their first glasses. "Anew," Jessica toasted, casually tapping her glass into his.

He smiled and took a sip, the flavor rustic over his tongue. "Good pick,” Gil commented.

“You’re not picky.”

"That’s true." He rubbed her waist. "That’s why you choose, right?”

“Funny.” Jessica tickled his knee with her fingers.

A familiar warmth grew into his middle, pushing away more of his stress. "Would you like a look?” Gil held a menu toward her.

She gave a slight head shake. “Manicotti.”

“Like old times, huh?” He’d gone so safe that he’d picked a place they’d been before. Twenty years and the wallpaper was still the same checkerboard.

“You can even take me home after," her voice teased with a promise of her soft fingers undressing him to reach his skin.

Gil gave a small smile, tempering his reaction.

“Look, it’s been awhile." She wrapped her arm around his waist at the back. "I know this is a weird, new thing. If you want to go home, we can.”

“I appreciate that.” He rubbed the back of her hand. “But I would like to treat you to a nice night out.”

She rested against him another moment, then returned her arms to her sides. "Shall we order then?”

At Gil’s squeeze of her hand, she looked toward their waiter, and they put in for two plates of manicotti.

* * *

Brian transitioned from playing the latest battle royale to streaming, the light from the television the only illumination. He kicked his feet up onto the coffee table, a few crumbs falling off his sweatpants. Remnants of dinner, midnight snack, post-midnight snack? Could've even been left from breakfast — didn't really matter.

He grabbed the controller and selected the next episode of the action series he’d been binge-watching. Where had he left off…the escape from a skyscraper last episode? Seemed about right.

_Which ad experience would you prefer?_

Not this shit.

_Brittany takes a day trip, Brittany rides the rough terrain, Brittany in the city._

He selected _Brittany takes a day trip_. In closeups of a sports car’s wheels, over its hood, across its side, Brittany took a ride to a picturesque country cabin like the ones upstate that cost a fortune to rent a night. Money he didn’t have. A status he never would either.

By the time the screen faded to black, his stomach panged with loneliness, reminding him he didn't have anyone as his shotgun and there wasn't a chance in hell his life would ever resemble even a smidgen of that. He reached into a bag of chips, feeding depression's hunger.

He was ready for his show.

* * *

Malcolm felt the faint trace of fingers up the sheets, the vibration making its way over to his legs. Catlike movements asking _feed me, feed me_ , rubbing against him until he gave in. “What time is it?” he asked sleepily, his voice rough like he'd been screaming.

At no response, he cracked his eyes to slivers.

No one.

Of course.

Unless he’d started dating someone new in the six weeks since Eve’s death.

No way he'd pull that off.

He looked at the clock. 10 AM. A grand total of four hours since he fell asleep. Roughly. It was just after six the last time he had peeked.

Downtime between cases was going…wonderfully. If looking in the dictionary next to dreadful with a side of DSM-5 could adequately portray how far from wonderful his idle mind wandered without the guiding compass of a case.

He meandered to the bathroom, showering and changing into his best comfort clothes. He left his hair wet and curled up into the corner of the couch with a mug of coffee.

Eve sat beside him as she always did, her clothes turned to stark, winter white, her makeup more ethereal. Her hair kept its heavenly wave she used to have to curl into it. A perfect vision.

“Movie and chill?” she asked, pointing to the remote.

“Yeah,” Malcolm agreed, taking a sip of the life brew. Part a memory of times before, part what they did now.

She tucked a hand under the back of his waffle weave shirt, a rare human touch soothing him in his sedate loft. Circle, circle, nudge, she unlocked a sigh. He navigated the menus with the remote, popping through selections.

“Someday when I have kids, I’m going to show them all of these,” she commented when he clicked on a superhero movie.

He stiffened, quickly swallowing the bit of coffee in his mouth to drop into a pit. “I don’t want kids.” A conversation they'd never had, but were apparently having now.

“Oh.” She clicked her tongue. Her calming touch retreated as she pulled away from him and stood. “I should probably go.”

He rubbed his forehead, not understanding how things had changed so quickly in the span of a click. Why was his mind torturing him? "Can we talk — “

“There’s nothing to say. I’m not going to try to convince you — please don’t try to sway me,” her lawyerly tone came through, distancing herself from the situation. He was practically in Siberia.

He just needed her to stay. “I’m — “

“Sorry. I’m gonna go.” She grabbed her things and exited through the front door, a vacuum left behind her.

The movie remained on in the background while Malcolm rocked his head into his hands, an attempt at self-soothing to close the gaping void eviscerating his insides worse than any weapon in his cabinets. It was just as wrecking as the last time Eve had disappeared. And the time before that. And the time before…

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

This morning after was different. Gil wasn’t tucked away in a guest suite or alone in his bedroom, the sheets missing any ghost of indentation from another form. And there hadn’t been much sleep.

He could get used to this.

His joints cracked as he stretched, a satisfied buzz lingering in his muscles. “You have a TV in your bathroom?” Gil said in disbelief, sinking himself into the tub. What else was concealed in the mansion?

“It hides behind the mirror,” Jessica defended as if the look of the electronics was the most surprising part over their existence.

“C’mere.” He held up his hand so she could lean on it for balance while she stepped into the tub.

She settled her spine against his chest in a familiar fit that brought a warmth rivaling the rose scented water. His hands drifted down to her waist, then lower to rub her hip bones with his thumbs. He kissed the back of her neck and helped her slide down further so she had more cushion for her head below his collarbone.

After a sensual night and lazy morning lounging together so comfortably like a well-loved puzzle, he couldn’t believe he’d been, dare he say, _nervous_ at all. They’d cared for each other a long time. Once their feelings were reawoken from distant hibernation, a lush spring eased away any lingering doubts.

Her voice rumbled against his chest, drawing him back from his sated appreciation. “My son,” she started with a huff, “will not come out of that apartment.”

Malcolm was not exactly what he wanted to talk about at the moment. He was always top of both of their minds, so if she was worried in her _complaining about him because she didn’t want to admit it_ sort of way, his concern would come next. “What can I do?”

“Give him a case or something,” she requested, her hand brushing one of his wrists.

After all the times she had argued just the opposite… “Do you hear yourself?” he asked with a small chuckle that rocked her head.

“Don’t remind me,” she warned, and he could hear her distasteful look.

He took her hand nearest him, folding it into his. “Jess — “

“He’s gonna do something stupid left to himself.”

“He’s not — “

“Do you hear _yourself_?” she returned.

Sighing, he supposed she had a point. He ran his fingers up her side and pulled her into a hug. His heart needed a little bit longer holding her before he had to deal with the rest of the world. “After.”

Seemingly pleased with his response, she pressed a few buttons on the remote, starting an interior decorating show on the television.

“Looking for your next home?” Gil teased, stroking her hair.

“I like to guess the asking prices after staging.” She set the remote back at the side of the tub. “And every once in a while it inspires me to change something around here.”

“Did you pick a new rug yet?” The living room remained off limits.

“No.” Jessica gave a little head shake against his chest. “I’m not ready.”

He kissed the top of her head. “In time.”

They had plenty of it to rest together, basking in the renewed comfort of each other.

* * *

Malcolm ran the Greenway, overheating in the late afternoon sun. It wasn’t outrageously warm, but he just kept running, not even breaking for water. His phone buzzed against his thigh, leading him to slow to a walk. “Hey,” he got out in between heavy breaths.

“You alright?” Gil’s voice came through.

“Running.” He took in a display talking about a house fire on Staten Island and splash pads starting to open in preparation for summer.

“Good — that’s good.”

“Case?” He scanned the ticker for murder, murder, murder…nothing.

“No. It’s the weekend, kid. Dinner?”

Not that criminals cared about day of the week. His shoulders dropped with the letdown, then guilt joined the feeling. Gil was one of the few people he looked forward to spending time with — it wasn’t fair not to share enthusiasm for the offer. “I don’t — “

“I’ll bring something over. Mackey’s grilled cheese?” Gil dangled one of his favorite dishes.

“Sure. Just — give me a bit?” His anxiousness hadn’t run out yet, and he needed to be significantly less sweaty to see him.

“Later. Enjoy your run.”

Malcolm stashed his phone into his pocket and picked his pace up to a jog, wanting to get in a few more miles before he decided to head toward home.

* * *

Gil brought dinner as promised along with a whole extra helping of concern behind his stray touches and furrowing brow. Malcolm thought he kept his struggle sufficiently concealed behind well-placed smiles and accepting the offer of company, but reading Gil, he knew he was failing.

“You’re moving like an old man,” Gil noted as Malcolm walked to the couch to mirror Gil’s spot.

Malcolm shrugged.

“Overdid it a little?” Gil posited.

Malcolm ignored him and cued up the television. “You pick something, old man,” Malcolm teased back and handed him the remote. The more they could joke, the more things would be…normal.

“Remember how many times you two watched _Charlie Brown Christmas_?” Gil said, looking at the television while he flipped through titles.

“Many.” Malcolm quieted at the brief mention of his sister. Another self-destructive weapon looming in his body. Guilt. Disappointment. Realization that she was closer to their father than he’d ever imagined. Regret that he hadn’t taken action and she was so inflamed with fear that she’d burst, spewing fiery red across his mother’s living room rug.

Gil tapped him with the remote, pulling him back from the blood bath. He hovered over _A Charlie Brown Christmas_ , his crinkled eyes teasing he would click.

“You can’t be serious,” Malcolm protested, not approving of the direction this was going. “It’s not — “

Gil chuckled, a smirk matching his eyes. “Just wanted to see what you’d say.”

Playing at miffed, Malcolm took another bite of his grilled cheese, a whole three bites in during the half hour since Gil had arrived.

Gil clicked over to a penguin documentary and started it, Malcolm catching another one of his stray glances. “You alright, kid?” he asked.

Ads played in the background that they ignored in favor of their conversation. Malcolm couldn’t get by with a _fine_ — Gil already had his antennas up. He rummaged through his mind for something that wouldn’t end with Gil sleeping on his couch. “Do you think Eve would have wanted kids?”

Gil gave him a confused look. With a touch of…sorrow? “Kid — “

“Maybe there was something else, and she would’ve left anyway,” Malcolm reasoned what he’d been unable to explain to himself.

“You can share your stance with the next person you date, you know? Early on.” Gil reached across the back of the couch, but Malcolm was too far away for him to connect with.

“Would you like wine with dinner? And how about kids?” Malcolm tilted his grilled cheese toward him.

“Not like that.” Gil laughed.

“I know, I know.” Malcolm gave a crooked smile and cocked his eyes.

“Your mom’s worried,” Gil’s voice tipped a little more serious, his own concern written in his brow.

“Sounds like a typical day. You two are sure getting chummy.” They’d been a unit since Gil had ended up in the hospital, and Gil had taken Ainsley’s place around the table at mandated meals.

Gil smiled and took another sip of his drink. “Problem?”

“No. I didn't mean..." He fumbled at his inability to say the right thing, then offered a firm answer, "Of course not. You seem happy.” His mother did too. He welcomed the idea that they could both have more joy in their lives. That Gil could spend more time outside the precinct again. That his mother could be with someone who wasn’t predisposed to murder.

“I am.”

“Good.” Malcolm gave him a small smile.

“Watch your penguins,” Gil instructed, pointing his glass at the television.

Baby black, white, and grey puffballs shuffled on the screen, and Malcolm wished he could reach out and touch their softness. Cuddle up with one until his world became a big haven of fluff. “How do you remember all this stuff? Sometimes I don’t, and _voila_ , you bring something back.”

“‘Cause it’s you,” Gil said simply like it was the most obvious thing.

“Will someone else ever know me like that?” Could he ever have a plush place to land again? Arms wrapped around him, telling him everything would be okay, sometimes getting close enough to almost believe it?

“Of course.” He caught Gil looking at him from the corner of his eye, but he didn’t turn his head.

“You have more faith than I do,” Malcolm said quietly, setting aside his neglected grilled cheese.

“That’s nothing new.”

Malcolm kept watching the penguins, now envious of their togetherness, of their epic huddle cuddle he yearned to be in the middle of.

Gil slid closer and wrapped an arm around Malcolm’s shoulders, bringing some sense of warmth and touch that Malcolm had been missing. That bit of home that was always there, yet Malcolm never knew how to ask for. “Things’ll look up, kid,” Gil promised. “They always do.”

When?

Malcolm took as much of Gil’s comfort as he could while it lasted before they separated to their opposite ends of the couch.

* * *

Allie sat down to catch up on the latest episode of her favorite sitcom that had aired the previous evening. After a full day's shift at the coffee shop, time off her feet was a priceless luxury. She started the show and was immediately prompted with _Which ad experience would you prefer?_

_Jon soothes acne, Jon challenges bipolar disorder, Jon kicks dry eyes._

Fuck, why did it have to show her ailments she struggled with? She didn’t click anything, not wanting the site to collect any more personal information about her. It was clear they had already gathered far more than she was comfortable with.

An ad for a shiny new pill to help manage bipolar depression autoplayed. She checked her watch, seeing she still had an hour before she was scheduled to take her medicine. The commercial ended with everyone smiling. She was not. 

Rage zipped through her veins over the violation to her privacy that invaded her living room. She wanted a few minutes of relaxation, moments spent with lives that seemed comically more difficult than her own, not…this.

The screen faded to black, and she thought she escaped. She took a measured breath as her therapist was apt to suggest.

_Which ad would you like to watch?_

_The long goodbye, Celebrating Emily, Darkest hours._

“ _Fucking none of them!_ ” she screamed at the television, all anticipated enjoyment of the activity lost in the electric fury that consumed her.

* * *

Malcolm stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep. In his peripheral vision, Eve floated back and forth in a pendulum of pacing. Closer, further away. Closer, further away. Comforting, taunting.

“Why do you keep doing this to me?” he complained, his voice thick with exhaustion. He needed to string together a few consecutive nights of sleep, or he’d be useless when Gil called him in.

“To you?” she returned. “Look what you did to me.”

Closer, snowy voile reached to cloak him in memories. Gentle fingers helping him into bed each night, seeing he was snug and comfortable before pressing a kiss to his forehead. Lazy mornings lounging in her bed, treasured grins underneath a blanket fort shrouding them from the day. Moments in each other’s company just…being.

Further away, covering her tracks to leave a new woman behind. A wilder version of abandoning him to search for her sister alone, his anger blurring into hers. Malicious motives behind keeping her full story from him. Twisting truths demonstrating he was responsible for her departure.

He took a glimpse at the clock. 1:30AM. Just as dead as she was at 1:00AM as she was at midnight.

Sleep wasn’t for the living.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

When Malcolm was alone, his loft was a much more difficult space to navigate. The high ceilings became cavernous, the open floor plan something to hide from rather than embrace.

Yet alone time was hard to come by, apparitions of dead girlfriends and all. Something his mind had conjured for comfort and never let go. It was questionable whether he spent more time with the dead or the living. His hand trembled in fear of the answer.

What he told Gabrielle was mostly true — he wasn’t seeing the girl in the box anymore. He may have neglected to mention he was seeing her sister. In pristine angelic detail. They could’ve attended the ritziest ball together, his mother fawning over them.

Gabrielle told him he was in crisis, something he already knew, but the word had been repeated so many times it lost its efficacy. Murder in his family had a way of doing that. Between Eve’s death, his sister’s incarceration while awaiting trial, and Gil’s recovery, he’d yet to find even footing.

Whatever that was for Malcolm Whitly.

His mother called him that when she scolded him, his father waved it around like a brandished sword. The news plastered it when they wanted to make accusations he was becoming his father, his sister. At least that was the way he imagined it. He tried to stay away from the media as much as he could, yet still encountered it when he was out in the world.

Only Gil had the courtesy to keep calling him Bright, and by extension, the team. It was the late 2000s all over again. The cacophonous media circus, he expected. His own family still being a pain about it? The small cuts would bleed inside him until there was nothing left.

All buttoned up in his suit, Malcolm looked ready to enter a courtroom and put on a show as lead defense attorney. Yet there was nothing he could do for Ainsley. Nothing to do for the girl who always occupied second chair until she swiped a blade across Endicott’s neck and stabbed him ’til he dropped to the basement. One bloody night, and now she’d always have the spotlight.

And he’d always have the regret. The guilt. The blame for not being able to protect his little sister. His girlfriend. Gil.

It would kill him.

* * *

First thing Monday morning, Gil rallied them all in the conference room. It was a weird place to be meeting — Gil usually had Malcolm go straight to the scene. They hadn’t already been — Dani was just getting in about the same time he was.

“We have a suicide,” Gil announced from the end of the room near the monitor cart. “Overnight.”

“So why’d we get called?” JT wondered. “Not a crime — public health crisis.”

“Victim, Parker Norwood, had security cameras running inside his house 24/7,” Gil explained as he cued up some of the footage on the monitor.

“Inside?” Dani said in surprised skepticism.

“Paranoid,” JT indicated.

“My mother has them,” Malcolm said. They all looked at him, so he added, “Helps her feel better after all the — “ He waved his hands around in place of a word. “ — that’s gone down there lately.”

“Remind me not to come by,” JT commented.

“What, you plan on stealing an heirloom?” He shared a lopsided grin. “Take a few — there’s too many. You’ll be helping her.” He wasn't about to go poking through any more storage spaces in that house. He shivered to know what they held.

“Can we pay attention to the screen a few minutes?” Gil directed, scanning all of them.

A living room, a couch, a TV — nothing special. A self-inflicted gunshot wound decorating the sandy couch a magnificent crimson? A little more interesting. Still not to a case-worthy level, though.

“So, he’s watching TV, and then he kills himself. Not the best last moments, but there are many worse,” Malcolm commented. _So_ many worse. “Like — “

“Look at the screen,” Gil directed, interrupting wherever the comparisons were going to go.

“ _Have you seen your gun lately?_ “ JT read from the television in the frame, his eyebrow reaching for his hairline. “What kinda BS is that?”

“Start with contacting the provider and seeing who paid for that ad,” Gil instructed.

“That’s an ad?” Dani questioned.

JT tapped the corner of the television onscreen. “Recognize that provider?”

“It’s only providing over a third of everyone’s streaming,” Malcolm commented. Even he had it at his sister’s insistence so she had something to watch when he was too boring. _Ains…_

“What, no exact percentage?” Dani joked, pushing his arm.

He covered with a smirk. “I’ll get back to you.”

“Let’s get to work,” Gil directed.

* * *

Turned out it was pretty damn difficult to get a straight answer from a multi-billion dollar streaming provider. Not that any of them were surprised. Dani collected JT from over the wall between their desks and they both went to update Gil in his office.

“The provider says they didn’t authorize that ad content,” Dani shared. “That it’s content the customer was playing on his own television.”

“Of course, they didn’t,” Gil’s tone indicated he didn’t believe the story.

“We can request his streaming records,” JT suggested. “It’ll take a bit longer, but if we can demonstrate he was watching something on their service at the time of his death, it’s a leverage point.”

“You’ve got the video footage,” Gil reminded them.

“I’m thinking go back through the best angles and get whatever played on the TV,” JT shared his plan of attack.

“You just wanna watch TV,” Dani accused jokingly.

“Sounds good. Where’s Bright?” Gil asked.

“Conference room. Trying to figure out why Parker. It’s practically historian level in there,” JT commented.

Dani shot JT a look of _turn it down in front of the bossman_.

Gil sighed.

“We’ll get back to it,” Dani said, and they left his office.

Out of eye and earshot, Dani nudged JT with her elbow, scolding him for his earlier comment.

“What’s going on there?” JT asked, tipping his head toward the conference room as they walked back to their desks.

“Seems like he just needs to work through it.” She’d waxed workaholic herself more than a few times. Losing anyone was a stew of emotions, never mind everything else he had heaped on his plate — it might be awhile before Malcolm was closer to okay.

“You can’t work back a dead girlfriend,” JT rebutted, concern on his face.

“He’s doing the job,” Dani snipped. “And then some. That’s what you look for, right?” her defense came out harsher than she intended, nipping into his back.

JT turned into his desk and held his chair in a tight grip a moment before responding. “Did I do — “

“No. I’m sorry,” she cut him off and shook her head. “I’m worried too. Couple weeks since last case he came in, and if anything, he seems worse.”

“You go see him?”

“Tried to. Didn’t seem to want anyone in the loft. Met for coffee once or twice.” Got to watch him poke at a croissant, ripping it apart instead of eating it. “You?”

“No. Texted.” JT looked into the conference room. “Think he’s still mad about us breaking down the door?”

“Think it’s a lotta things.” That from past experience, he had no interest in talking about until he brought it up.

“Got any more lollipops left?”

Dani reached in her desk and pulled one out, setting it in JT’s waiting hand. A stockpile of simple ways to remind him he had friends.

“Thanks.”

She watched him enter Malcolm’s lair in the conference room and caught Malcolm’s smile when he received a treat to keep him going.

* * *

JT wasn’t kidding about the historian. Malcolm had library-worthy stacks of paper all around him on the table, highlighted sections and sticky notes dotting them in a web of associations. Gil shook his head, not knowing what he was going to do with him.

“It’s time to go home, Bright,” Gil called into the conference room.

“Just a few more minutes," Malcolm said to his printouts and notes.

“This isn’t story time,” Gil returned, Malcolm’s words one of his favorite childhood lines.

“What am I, five?” Malcolm glanced up at him with an eye-roll.

“You tell me,” Gil said firmly, challenging him on whether he was going to pick that evening to be stubborn.

Malcolm looked at his watch.

“I already gave you an extra hour and a half. Lights out, kid.” Gil nudged him in the right direction.

“Okay,” Malcolm conceded, packing up his research for the night.

“Trying not to keep your mom waiting for dinner ’til midnight.” Truth be told, she’d keep holding it until she got word he was on his way, but he didn’t like the idea of her staff needing to wait longer, and it made a convenient excuse.

“I can get home on my own,” Malcolm said, his puppy dog eyes doing their best to try to convince him to change his mind. Bullshit. The kid would stay there all night if Gil left him unattended.

“C’mon.” Gil tugged the back of the neck of his jacket to keep him moving toward the car.

* * *

Malcolm stretched out in bed, his bare legs rubbing between the sheets. He missed the warmth of Eve’s legs, the curl of her toes up his calf. The graze of touches creating a lazy haze to lull him to sleep.

“I’m right here, Malcolm.” Eve wrapped her arms around him from the back, warming his stomach.

“We don’t sleep together,” he reminded her, as if the information would make her vanish.

“But I stay until you fall asleep. Hold you.” She brushed his shoulder down to his hip, soothing him with whispers that traced half-hearts under his skin. Bioluminescent, fading when her fingers moved.

“Only sometimes. Insomniac. You need more sleep than me.” She should go upstairs so her eyes wouldn’t look hollow like his, wouldn’t let him peer into her soul and see there wasn’t anything left.

“I’m better at this in the afterlife,” she assured him, kissing his neck.

“You really shouldn’t stay,” his voice wavered, the realization that she would disappear bleeding into it.

“Do you want me to go?” Her hand stilled at his waist, all the light going out.

“Yes? No? I don’t know?” A response as confused as the fleeting fragments of figments in his head.

“Which is it?” she whispered into his ear, her breath cool instead of warm. Wrong. Wrong. She felt wrong. Something was _wrong_.

“Hold me. For now,” his plea emerged quietly.

“Okay.”

It didn’t help him fall asleep any faster.

* * *

Gil looked over to where Jessica sat at the couch in the TV room, dressed down in trousers and a long-sleeved shirt. She was still fancy compared to his pajamas, but if she had walked around the house in a robe, he would’ve suspected she was sick.

“Darling, do we want birds, cats, or gerbils?” Jessica called across the room to where Gil was preparing them drinks.

“Cats.” He snickered over the vision of any animals inhabiting her house. A clawed rip down the expensive sofa, balls of fluff scrambling up the curtains, hiding in the many cubbies and pouncing at the most inopportune moments.

“Now, how about _Kill Bill_ , _John Wick_ , or _The Karate Kid_?”

“ _The Karate Kid_.” Like Malcolm.

He brought their drinks to the coffee table and sat next to her on the couch. Instead of going for her drink, she kissed him, a soft press of their lips at the center. One turned into two turned into her hand in his hair, his hand at her neck and the quiet clicking glide of lips connecting and exploring.

The brassy opening of the movie brought their attention back to the television, both of them smiling and taking their drinks, Gil wrapping his arm around her to keep her close. “You picked _Groundhog Day_?” he asked, chuckling.

“I know you like a good Bill Murray.” She squeezed his knee.

“Doesn’t seem like your thing.” Maybe she still had new surprises to discover.

“We could use a little bit of humor.”

“Here, here.” He clinked their glasses together and she burrowed into him. He rubbed her shoulder and caught the glimpse of a small smile gracing her face. His movie watching partner. He liked the ring of that.

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

Buttoned up, work. Another day Malcolm could potentially add to his tally of lives positively impacted. Saved. A long list that would never reach a point where it would counterbalance his family's wrongdoings.

“Parker worked in finance. Had significant extra capital,” Malcolm explained the beginnings of the findings he had stacked into a series of folders in front of him. He didn’t need to reference them — the summary was sketched in his mind.

JT interrupted him with a deadpan statement, “Like someone else we know.”

“That he used in part spending weekends on the gun range,” Malcolm continued to refute JT. “He was paranoid someone would attack him. Distanced himself from his family — anyone who could get close enough to threaten his safety.”

“So maybe not you,” JT conceded with a small smirk.

“Unless Gil changes his mind.” Malcolm looked to Gil.

“In your dreams, kid,” Gil returned firmly.

“No one was in that apartment,” JT reminded. They had hours of camera footage to prove it.

“Which brings us to motive for Parker’s death. If we assume the ad came from the streaming provider — “ Malcolm started.

“Pretty sure it did.” JT slapped his folder on the table.

“Then we’re looking at cybercrime. Take your pick — property, people, or government.” Malcolm might as well have fanned out a deck of cards they could _go fish_ from.

“His wealth could be the target,” Dani reminded.

“There are easier ways to extort him,” Gil pointed out. “If they had the tech knowledge, why not just take his money?”

“Don't need to be technical to be a cybercriminal,” JT interjected.

“They could be hiding behind any identity or broadcasting exploits to the world,” Malcolm suggested. A whole sea of possibilities to consider.

“Hacktivist? If it's for notoriety, we can expect a public message,” Dani pointed out.

“You tryin’ to profile Anonymous, hotshot?” JT looked at Malcolm like he was about to get taken down a few pegs.

“No. Could be social engineering. Disgruntled employee. Someone who hacked the feed,” Malcolm rattled off the many possibilities. “Statistically speaking, there’s contact with someone inside the company. Look close to home."

“Anything to get us out of the deep end of possibilities?” Gil asked, attempting to funnel the brainstorming.

“I’ve got stills of every ad that played on that screen,” JT indicated, laying them out on the table. Panes of a man's last minutes.

“So he sits down — “ Malcolm started, looking across the grid of images.

“We got that part, Bright,” Gil said, urging Malcolm forward.

“Which ad experience would you prefer?” The white letters appeared over a dark background with multiple scene choices below.

“The same message I get all the time,” JT said. “Tally likes crime dramedies.” At Malcolm’s look, he shrugged. “Maybe I do, too.”

“Logan plays football, Logan plays chess, Logan plays violin. And he picks violin,” Malcolm continued reading from the first page.

“It’s all standard stuff,” Gil commented.

Malcolm scanned over to the next screenshot. _Which ad would you like to watch?_

 _Millie eats Italian, Millie eats Japanese, Millie eats Ethiopian_. The victim picked Italian. Wouldn’t be Malcolm’s first choice. But none wasn’t an option.

Malcolm kept reading across the pages. _Did you know the Etruscan shrew is the world’s smallest mammal?_ Malcolm did. Oddly specific.

 _Would you like to hear the world’s smallest violin play my heart bleeds for you?_ Not particularly. He had had enough trauma.

 _Have you seen your gun lately?_ Another reminder Gil wouldn’t let him carry at work. Not that he had a penchant for using one when threatened.

“The power of suggestion?” Malcolm offered a thought for consideration.

“Like that movie popcorn shit?” JT asked.

“Subliminal advertising,” Malcolm provided the term for the concept. “A misnomer, and not really true. You can see it, so it’s not subliminal.”

“Is this some kind of messing with people’s heads?” Gil asked.

Malcolm played back the zoomed in security camera footage on the monitor. “If any of you watched that series of ads, would you shoot yourself?”

Everyone in the room gave a resounding, “No.”

“So why did he?”

* * *

“Pack your box,” Misha instructed, hitting the back of Alex’s chair.

Startled, Alex looked up from her keyboard. “Wh— “

“We got a hit!” he exclaimed with more enthusiasm than she’d ever seen. His salt and pepper hair was _moving_.

“D-wing?” She held her breath in anticipation for him to give her the news she longed for. Moisture gathered under her arms and dampened the nape of her neck.

“Yes, _c’mon_.” He threw his few things into a copy paper box, his laptop and keyboard going onto the top and monitor going under his arm.

“What did it?” She grabbed her own box, put her photo of her plant inside and added her laptop and keyboard.

“ _Fire and Ice_.”

"Really?” Wouldn’t have been her first guess. Probably not even top five.

His eyes were _glowing_. Lively Misha? She had no idea what to do with that. Apocalypse level stuff. "The counter says one. We’re moving up. Who cares about anything else?”

She shrugged. “Do we need to bring our chairs?” Any time they moved in E-wing, the dance of musical chairs went with them.

“No. D-wing actually deserves them,” he muttered like he was apt to do when making comparisons he didn’t agree with.

“Do you think they have cushions?” She was getting rather tired of her makeshift pillow on top of her mesh chair. Her spine was, too. She added the compressed pillow to the top of her box.

“Let’s go.” He walked away before she could ask any more questions, leaving her to follow him, box in one arm, monitor in the other, only dust left behind on their small table.

* * *

Malcolm's phone buzzed, interrupting his concentration. A glimpse of the screen, and he looked over to Gil's office to see if it was free and slid inside to take the call.

"My boy! How's the precinct?" Dr. Whitly's voice came over the line, cheery as could be. Of all the people that could find happiness, it had to be him.

Did he have spies?

"What kind of case are you working on? Tell me it's a good one. Murder? A sliver of patricide? Your sister's defense?" he spoke like it was the latest event under the big top.

His demons reaching through the phone, Malcolm's hand shook at his side. "How did you even — "

"You actually picked up. And you just confirmed it. So tell dear _Daaad_ ," he stretched out the _A_ , sounding even more like the vile monster who shredded every aspect of normalcy in his life.

"Don't call me," Malcolm demanded, asserting control over one of the few things he thought he could.

"A little slip, and life could be hell for you. Or how 'bout your mom? Matching jumpsuits! _Twins!_ " His cheshire grin burst through the phone, glimmering in front of Malcolm.

Malcolm looked up to Gil standing inside the door, eyes raging to peel the phone out of his fingers. Gil didn't, but his stern gaze led Malcolm to hang up on Dr. Whitly. Malcolm slid his phone back in his pocket, where it immediately buzzed again.

"Let me block it?" Gil asked.

"It'll just get worse," Malcolm said in defeat. The muted beast would lash out another way, not caring who he took down in a wild slash, shouldering Malcolm with the guilt for the crime.

"Kid — "

"Gonna get back to it." Malcolm headed for the other door so he could go be useful.

"Don't stay too late," Gil's voice trailed behind him.

* * *

Coming home to his wife had new meaning, the knowledge they were expecting making JT feel like he had two people waiting for him instead of one. Tally preferred to go in to work early and cut out at four, and the reality of police work was that he often got home much later. The few hours of time difference gave them their own separate spaces, a healthy distance for their marriage.

Didn’t mean he didn’t spend the last hour or so thinking of her and the prospective Tarmel from time to time. He was glad to get home, the two of them fixing a late dinner and eating it together before retiring to relax.

JT sat on the couch and Tally sunk in beside him, grabbing the remote. “Maybe you can stay awake through a whole two episodes,” Tally joked, her smile bringing him a smile.

“Maybe not tonight.” He needed to stay as far away from that streaming provider as possible for his sanity. “Could we do one of the movies you downloaded instead?”

“Sure. What’s going on?” She rubbed his thigh. “You never turn down crime TV.”

“Not the show.” He stretched his arm along the back of the couch behind her. “Weird case.”

“What are you feelin’?” Tally asked, scrolling through some of the titles. “Action, mystery, comedy — “

“Anything.” If he was being picky about the service, he would leave her free rein to pick the movie.

“You’re not gonna make it ten minutes, are you?”

“I can watch a movie.” He nudged her side.

“Umhm. Prove it,” she teased, the opening scene starting.

He fell asleep wondering what their prospective Tarmel would look like sitting between them.

* * *

The perks of sharing a bedroom turned out to include unsolicited back rubs. Gil had turned in first, and when Jessica joined him, her hands took to kneading along his spine.

“Dear, your shoulders are so stiff,” Jessica remarked, digging her hands further into Gil’s muscles.

“This isn’t too bad,” Gil said into the pillow.

“You were more relaxed when you were staying home.”

“Full pay’s a lot better than short-term disability,” Gil joked. He welcomed his desk more than the couch, the hospital bed.

She stilled. "I — “

“It’s not about the money, Jess.” Never had been between them, and he didn’t want to make it that way either.

“I know that.” Her touch was gentler, her palms smoothing across his skin.

“Plus, Malcolm’s at work, figuring out a case. Isn’t that what you wanted?” he reminded.

“I wouldn’t _exactly_ put it that way,” she leaned toward disagreeing. “But I’m glad he’s spending time away from hermitting. Moss was growing.”

Gil thought of Sunshine pecking at specks of green on Malcolm’s skin, making a little nest for herself. He’d never considered the kid man of the mountain. A mixed bag of interests and quirks that made him difficult to befriend, yes. Subdued when he was down, sure. Reclusive at times instead of reaching out for help, definitely. But he always came back for the sun. The kid would be rambunctious and tearing into something new that would have Gil chasing after him in no time.

She approached his neck again, and he put his hand over hers, stilling her movements. “Let’s sleep.”

“If you insist.” She stopped her back rub and laid beside him on her stomach. He reached out to touch her hip, keeping them connected in sleep.

* * *

Why Parker?

It was the question that poked through every piece of Malcolm’s brain. Also, the only question he had yet to find a matching answer. Who hated Parker enough to want him dead?

Apparently, no one from the looks of it. Except Parker.

Not particularly useful for narrowing down what happened.

Gil wanted him to let it go, leave it in the precinct, but it was yet another middle of the night he couldn’t sleep. Nothing had been published in the media, no one had claimed Parker’s death, no one had revealed a security flaw or declared victory of hacking a streaming service.

A chorus of _why? why? why?_ remained in Malcolm's mind, joining the other echoes he’d never be able to explain. A lengthy refrain with little time for breath.

He tried to quiet them with logic.

He poured himself a glass of whiskey and sat at the couch. Pulled up his research — the streaming service that made them scratch their heads.

_Which ad experience would you prefer?_

_Chris hops the city, Chris dives deep, Chris flies the skies._

He took a sip of his whiskey and selected _Chris flies the skies_.

The jet-setting lifestyle of a twenty-year-old traveling the world lit up the screen, bright colors depicting each of the experiences she had. Though Malcolm had the means, it was something he had never done. Was it something he might want to do someday?

Could he spend a month backpacking through Europe? A bunch of guys from boarding school had done that. He didn’t talk to any of them either. Hop from continent to continent climbing all the tallest peaks? He might need to pick up mountaineering. Hang gliding to see the world like Sunshine? But then he’d be away from her. Many different opportunities to keep busy, yet none of them seemed particularly appealing.

The stark contrast between the commercial and the solid background of the next question drew Malcolm’s attention just in time to answer it.

_Which ad would you like to watch?_

Did anyone really _want_ to watch any of these? 

_Great escape, The land beyond, Shoot for the moon._

He selected _Shoot for the moon_. A rainbow parachute floated over a vast green landscape, only the grass and blues from the sky visible in the frame. Floating for what, falling for what, unknown. The scene disappeared and only a watch remained. Timeless.

_Did you know it’s uncountable how many people jump off the George Washington and Brooklyn Bridges every year?_

No official tallies released. Also a way to discourage people from attempting it more.

_Would you like to try?_

“Would you?” Eve asked beside him. One small voice that entered his consciousness enough to spook him.

Malcolm’s glass fell to the floor and broke into a few pieces. The whiskey soaked into the rug, squishing under his foot. His hands shook and clenched into and out of his hair, trying to grasp onto something that would ground him to the present. His apartment. Sans anyone else who might be living there.

“G-Gil, I have a lead,” Malcolm managed to get into his phone once he was coherent enough to speak. “I need you to come _now_.”

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

Explaining to Jessica he had to leave for a case in the middle of the night was easier than sharing her son had called him in a fractured state. It got her to stay home so Gil could get to Malcolm without antics. He wouldn’t have fibbed if Malcolm hadn’t specifically requested only he come.

As soon as he got in his car, he put Malcolm on speaker. “Talk to me about what you found,” Gil directed. Anything to hear he was alive.

“T-they’re preying on people. G-Gil, we should wait until you get here,” Malcolm urged, his voice jittery like he’d panicked.

Keep him talking, keep him talking… “Okay. What’d you have for lunch?”

“I didn’t.” Not surprising.

“What’s Sunshine up to?” He always smiled talking about his bird.

“Sleeping.” Could he get anything more than one and two word answers out of him?

“What do you want to do with me tomorrow?” Today? Tomorrow? What time was it? Gil looked at the dashboard. 2:19AM. Anxiousness rattled under his skin at how bad off Malcolm must have been to call at that hour. What was he going to walk into? He gripped the steering wheel tighter to try to keep his fear in check, yet it crept out in his free foot tapping against the mat.

“What?” Malcolm sounded surprised by the question.

“Well, I’m definitely going to take you to get lunch.” Someone had to make sure he fed himself when he got distracted. “What else would you like to do with me tomorrow? Anything.”

He heard a sniff. “Work the case. Maybe get a ride in your new car.”

“You can get one of those tonight if you want. No driving, though — can’t let any of your family behind the wheel,” Gil teased. The amount of insurance paperwork he had to go through in the past year had been insane. Never mind the level of incident paperwork that had appeared since Malcolm had joined the team. He loved the kid, but he sure could be a pain in the ass to manage.

“I don’t really drive anyway, Gil,” Malcolm reminded. Like Gil forgot Malcolm’s two years of white-knuckling the LeMans’ steering wheel while he was home from school, panicked that he might end an animal or human life. Hours of trying to talk him down from the passenger seat so he’d be able to achieve his dream of relocating to Quantico.

“Wouldn’t want you getting any ideas.”

“A hug.” Another sniff. “I think I’d like a hug.”

“It’s all yours as soon as I get there.” Gil rubbed his goatee, anxious to have contact with the kid. Tears were a terrible sign coupled with not seeming to be trying to hide them. “Tell me about Sunshine’s newest tricks.”

Gil laid on the gas, hoping he could make it through two lights before they changed again.

* * *

Gil scaled the stairs quickly and let himself in, Malcolm telling him he was in the living room. Still talking. Good.

When he passed the kitchen, he caught Malcolm’s form rocking against the couch in the light from the nature documentary playing on the television. As he got closer, he noted sweat at his temples, his skin sickly. No wounds. Good. “Hey, kid, I’m here,” he said quietly as he approached, not wanting to spook him. The kid looked like he’d already had enough of a shock.

Gil turned off the television and pulled on the table lamp before sitting next to Malcolm on the floor, the couch vibrating a little as Malcolm bumped into it. He found three pieces of broken glass beside him. “Let me take those.” He reached for the shards, setting them away from Malcolm on the side table. "Any cuts?" Not that Gil could see, but he needed to be sure.

Malcolm shook his head. "There’s more people,” Malcolm said, his hand jerking in a manic frenzy.

“How ‘bout that hug,” Gil suggested, pulling Malcolm into his shoulder.

Malcolm’s whole body shook against him. What in the world had caused the earthquake? “Did you tell my mother?” Fear tumbled out of Malcolm’s mouth. It was different hearing it in person, each shudder cracking into his own chest.

“No. It’s just me,” Gil assured him, running his fingers through Malcolm’s hair. The kid was soaked with sweat.

“I’d like to call her. After.” Where he’d been so adamant on the phone, he now seemed indecisive.

“Of course.”

“I thought I was past this. The — thoughts — t-the — “ He let out a whooshing breath, his hand uncontrollable. “I-I think I need to leave.”

“Okay. Where to?” Gil needed him to know he was in control.

“Your house. Please.” Malcolm clung to his coat. “My bag’s still packed in the closet.”

Gil kept talking to him the quick walk to it and back, the first things that came to the top of his mind just to keep a running dialogue.

Malcolm huddled into Gil's coat as soon as he returned. "I didn't do anything. I promise," Malcolm said adamantly into the lapel.

"Good." A wash of salve for Gil's consuming worry. He rubbed the back of the kid's neck, and with an arm around him, they left.

* * *

Malcolm lay across Gil’s couch, squeezing his thumb and forefinger at the bridge of his nose. “Kid, the bed’s all set for you,” Gil said, sitting in a chair beside him.

“We need to expand the search for more people who have died by — “ Malcolm stopped, swapping words. “Killed themselves.”

His other hand was squashed beneath him, the pressure between his ass and the couch the only thing hiding most of its movements.

“The ad gave bridge jumping stats,” Malcolm detailed with a sigh. “And asked if I…if I wanted to.”

Gil stilled, his eyes widening. They went after his kid? With a serious struggle he’d had when he was younger? For what? His knuckles clenched so tight they cracked, wanting to strangle whatever sick fuck thought this was a statement.

“It’s not random.” Tears spilled from his eyes. “Not a fucking coincidence my...Eve’s murder showed up on my TV,” Malcolm spat, his tremor jittering up his arm along with his words.

“What?” Footage?

“No — not.” Malcolm shook his head. “Manner of death. How she was found.”

“You’re saying the suggestion is working because it’s personal,” Gil attempted to put the pieces together.

“Yes. There are more people,” Malcolm insisted. “There have to be. We need to look.”

“Okay. First thing in the morning.”

“Call my mom. Please.” More tears spilled and he turned to hide his face in the back of the couch.

“Kid — “

“I’m okay. Just…triggered,” his words were muffled in the cushion.

“That doesn’t sound like okay,” Gil pressed. He wasn’t convinced they shouldn’t be making a drive to —

“I’m not gonna jump off the damn bridge!” Malcolm barked and pulled at his hair, his hands shaking. Just as quickly, he sputtered, “Gil, I’m sorry.”

“Let’s get your mom.” Gil rubbed the back of Malcolm’s neck. She’d be able to help determine next steps.

* * *

Though late night calls about her son’s antics were not new, Jessica didn’t panic any less when she got them. Especially when that call came from the man who had been with her a couple hours earlier.

Racing over to the Arroyo’s, the three of them had huddled around Malcolm many times when he was a kid to get him through the night. He always preferred them to her, packing up all his pain until it burst on their doorstep, where he knew he had a safe place to fall. Then, once some of it had escaped, he’d ask for her, or, as she later found out, they’d suggest calling her.

She wished it could have been her home. That he wasn't irreparably harmed by her poor choice of husband. That she could have been a good enough mother that he didn’t feel the need to run to be safe. That two other people hadn’t become his found parents.

But if it hadn’t been for Gil and Jackie, he wouldn’t be _alive_.

And she’d repaid that by not going to Jackie's funeral. Out of what? Misplaced anger for the connection they had with Malcolm that she didn’t? For the life they all had together that she didn’t seem to fit into? For Malcolm’s success without his mother?

Twenty years of history came rolling back anytime she stepped foot into Gil’s house. Swallowing a pill from her tin, she strode through the kitchen into the living room, finding Malcolm a cowering mess and Gil’s brow furrowed with the concern she’d seen too many times before they wound up at the hospital.

“A case, my ass,” Jessica swatted Gil’s shoulder with the side of her handbag. As much as part of her wanted to lash out at him, she knew her son's typical wishes, and he was the only pressing issue.

“Mom, it is a case,” Malcolm supplied into the cushion.

She sat on the couch and pulled Malcolm into her, her anxiousness settling just a little when she felt the lub dub of his pulse under her fingers. Gil moved to step out, but Malcolm requested, “Stay.”

Malcolm lifted his legs, and Gil took the other end of the couch, holding them in his lap.

“Dear, do you want to go in? We can take you,” Jessica offered. She needed to hear from him what they were dealing with.

“It just scared me.” She squeezed him tighter, his form feeling more like the child who'd been traumatized by his father. “I’m okay.”

“Will you call Gabrielle?” Jessica suggested instead, wanting a licensed opinion.

“Yes. In a bit.”

“I’ve got you,” Jessica said with determination, rubbing his hair. Mama Bear had been activated, and nothing was getting through her claws.

Jessica looked to Gil even though she knew her worry would show through, and he stretched out his hand, squeezing hers when she set it into his. She gave him a small nod back, acknowledging yet another time she was indebted to Gil for sheltering her son.

* * *

JT and Dani were waiting in the conference room when Gil walked in, a continuous stream of coffee in his hands. He hadn’t slept since the kid had called.

“Where’s Bright?” JT asked.

“He’s taking a sick day,” Gil informed them, maintaining his privacy.

JT and Dani looked at Gil like he had four heads. At least one of them was still back at his house where Malcolm’s head lay in his mother’s lap, sleeping. They had agreed not to wake him until it was time to go into his appointment.

“Start a search for other users of the streaming service who died by suicide recently,” Gil directed, bypassing their concern.

“You think there’s more people?” Dani questioned, texting at the same time.

“Yes.”

“Boss, I tried to playback more content from Parker’s account. It’s shutdown,” JT indicated, texting as well.

“What company ends a customer relationship that fast?” Dani commented.

“I have another account,” Gil shared in that fortunately, unfortunately sort of way that came from Malcolm getting too deep into a case. They got solves, but at what cost?

“It needs to be one that — “ JT started.

“It does,” Gil cut him off, but didn’t offer any more detail.

“Bright says it’s his,” Dani relayed to the room.

“He’s good, but he’s trying to get some beauty sleep for once,” JT added.

So much for the kid resting. But at least the whole team was looking out for him.

“Keep it in here,” Gil directed, giving both of them a stern glare, they nodding in return. He left the room, leaving them to their work.

“He send you what he sent me?” Dani asked, vague enough so as not to reveal something if he hadn’t.

“Yeah.”

“It’s a good sign Gil’s here, right?” Dani reached for something that would identify Malcolm was doing better than the dead guy in the morgue.

“You known Bright to want to be coddled?” JT rebutted.

“No — “

“Text him. Give him some space, but let him know he’s…”

“Loved?” Dani offered.

JT nodded.

“Fuck,” Dani grumbled, crumpling her cup in one fist and throwing it into the trash.

“Let’s keep busy.”

“Yeah.”

* * *

Dani had to approach the search for the streaming provider’s customers who had died by suicide backwards. She searched for people who died by suicide with record of being a streaming customer because that was the data they had. The original search would need to wait until they had data from the provider. Whenever the hell that would be.

She thought about what Malcolm’s name would look like among all she searched, a Swedish Fish in the sea of black text. It wasn’t something he would do, but she didn’t think he would murder a man either until they were smack in the middle of an investigation with all the evidence pointing differently. She was halfway to wondering who would find him when a counterbalancing voice in her head reminded she had been wrong. He hadn’t been guilty. He wouldn’t do that.

The list of people wasn’t long, and she brought it to Gil’s office.

“One this week, Gil. A handful more if we go back further to the beginning of the year,” Dani explained.

“Give me this week,” Gil requested.

“Allie Barton. Intentional OD,” Dani read from her paper. “There could be more people. This is just from the data we have on the deceased.”

“They have a third party ad aggregator. Office here in the city,” Gil shared. “To see what Parker last saw, we need to go through the provider to them.”

“We already know what Parker saw,” Dani complained.

“We can’t get what anyone else saw until we demonstrate a connection.”

“Their legal department better be ready when we make them take down their ‘we don’t serve ads like that on this platform’ stance. We need to approach the company,” Dani indicated.

“With a warrant. I’m waiting to hear back.”

Dani paused an extra moment in place of leaving his office. “We’ve been talking to Bright all day.”

“Same. Taking him to lunch.”

“Can we send some lollipops with you?” It was the quickest thing she could come up with to bring him a smile, let him know they cared.

“Sure.”

“He good?”

“You know our boy. Keeps on keepin’ on.” Gil’s worry peeked out on his forehead, but she didn’t comment, instead nodding and leaving.

She brought the lollipops back, instructing Gil, “Tell him to hang in there.”

“You got it.”

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

_We got another hit_ , Misha’s note came over direct message with a screenshot of the counter, the second time that day. Three now. What kind of bonus would that get them? Free food in a fully-stocked kitchen? Craft beer on tap? Extra money in their paychecks?

Alex looked at the cube wall between them. He was just on the other side, but he didn’t slide over to talk. Perks of D-wing — less human interaction — she didn’t even see his tuft of hair over the monitor anymore.

Would he play pingpong? She wanted to, but wasn’t keen on staying at work longer to make it happen. There were other engineers on the floor, but no one really seemed interested in talking, much less games. The promised celebration? Nowhere in sight. Customer testimonials highlighting their success? Nonexistent. The walls were barren.

She glanced at her email. Where exactly did her request to talk with the viewer who was a successful lead conversion hit go that it got rejected as impossible within ten minutes? Who had the magical lightning _no_ power when responses to other requests seemed to take forever?

A notification had her flipping back to the main Slack channel. _Legal hold — records retention._ Another one. They seemed to get one a month. She shrugged and returned to working on a defect.

“Alex, my office.” Her boss appeared behind her, looking over her shoulder to her screen. Though more private than a table, her tiny cube setup left her open to every angle of surprise except the front. Too cow being led to slaughter for her taste. He better like essence of coffee milk.

Like a crocodile stalking its next meal, he had managed to make his way to her cube without her notice, something previously deemed below his pay grade. This couldn’t be good. Her feet thudded on a death march down the hall to his office, anticipating the strike.

He sat stiffly behind his desk, his cushioned seat high and imposing over her basic plastic one. “When do you start session recording?”

“For a change or for a specific ticket,” she responded with the action she’d completed a hundred times. How new leaf of him to care.

“When do you stop?” he continued the quiz.

“When it’s done. After checkout.” Where was this going? These were probably the most words he had directed to her in one sitting since she had started.

“Why is it still live in production?” His eyes narrowed, drilling into her for answers.

Huh? Maybe she made a mistake. “I don’t know,” she said, a little flustered. “I can fix it and turn it off right away.”

“Legal hold. Can’t push the change.”

“So I’ll fix it after. It’s not a big deal. Dragging performance by two seconds, max.” Had no other impact on end customer experience. It wasn’t like any of the providers would be calling them.

“It’s capturing data being used in a _police_ investigation,” he emphasized and leaned toward her, his frame somehow even more imposing.

She gave him a glare right back, not appreciating his bubbling ire. “We’re running advertising experiments — why would anyone care if people are more likely to pick one ad over the other?”

“You’re in D-wing. We didn’t get that name for our impeccable use of the alphabet," his tone drooled male chauvinism.

Huh?

“C-suite will take care of it. All your changes will be verified from now on. Misha will accept them before they can go to production,” he spoke dismissively, not receptive to alternative suggestions.

“That’s not — “

“Would you rather be fired? Because that’s what’s about to happen.”

Alex gasped and shook her head. Four years of college, still in debt — fired next to her name, it’d be an uphill battle to work again.

“Go back to work.”

He turned to his monitor, her cue to leave his office.

D-wing was…a disappointment.

* * *

By the time Gil made it out to lunch with Malcolm it was almost 3PM. Gil gave him a hug when he picked him up and took him on the promised drive to the deli. The kid was quiet, but he was a lot more physically relaxed than when Gil had last seen him awake.

“How you feeling?” Gil asked over his sub.

“Tired,” Malcolm admitted, sipping his tea.

“Whole team’s asking for you.”

Malcolm gave a small smile. “They all texted. JT’s joking about my bad taste in movies.”

“To each their own, right?”

“TV’s not exactly top of my priority list.” Malcolm took another sip. “You find anything yet?”

“Another potential. We can talk about it when you come in.” Gil skirted the case, trying to stay away from it.

Malcolm nodded.

“Did you get to — “

“Yes,” Malcolm cut him off.

“Anything else you want to do?” Gil changed the subject, recognizing from his tone it was clear Malcolm didn’t want to talk.

“Go back to your house.”

Gil reached into his pocket, setting two lollipops on the table. Malcolm smiled at the sight, unwrapping one and putting it in his mouth. “I think you know who they’re from.”

“Tell them, thank you,” Malcolm said around the stick.

If only candy could turn things around, the kid would be the picture of health. But it was on the wrong side of the pyramid.

* * *

When Gil got back, the team was still poring through content in the conference room.

“I’ve tried pretty much every genre — none of these shows have the ads.” JT paused the monitor.

“Wrong time of day?” Dani suggested. “Middle of the night has better odds of this working.”

“It was around two," Gil shared, remembering his dash. The clothes he was wearing. How many lights he had to zip through. The kid’s heart rate when he’d finally touched his skin, feeling he was alive.

“Lemme call Tally, and I can take the late shift,” JT offered.

“Thank you.”

“Okay if I put in a request to Tech to script the clicking on these ads? Won’t help for tonight, but if we have to keep doing this, it’ll be more efficient.”

“Sure — whatever you think we need.” Whatever got them to demonstrable proof that the ads were being shown through the service provider.

“You want some popcorn?” Dani joked.

“You taking full meal orders now? ‘Cause I’ll have — “

“Whatever you want, I’ll go get it,” Dani replied with a serious offer.

“Double cheeseburgers?”

“You got it.”

“Bright says, thank you,” Gil reported.

They nodded, and Gil left the room.

* * *

Dani sat in the middle of her living room, unsure what to do with herself. Sure, she could turn on any other provider and watch a show, but her show was on the streaming service at the center of their case. Would she get the ads? She didn’t know, but she wasn’t keen on finding out.

Maybe Malcolm was stronger. Or maybe he liked to fly in the face of danger and see what would happen. It wasn’t like she would seriously consider a message encouraging self harm. She just didn’t feel like dealing with it that night.

She stared at the black screen of her television and wondered how any other ads like that could make it into her apartment. Would her voice-assisted speakers start talking to her? Would her phone get a mind of its own?

She unplugged the speakers and left her phone to charge. She retreated to bed, deciding sleep was the best option she had.

* * *

Gil entered his house to Jessica waiting up for him at the kitchen table. She stood when he opened the door, walking over to meet him. “Where’s the kid?” he asked.

“Sleeping,” Jessica said, and he accepted her hug. “Gabrielle got him to take a sedative.”

Gil cupped her cheek, soothing his thumb back and forth near her ear.

“She wants him to take it easy.”

“Sounds just like Malcolm.” Gil gave a sad smirk.

“I’m more worried he’s listening,” Jessica admitted. "Been keeping an eye out. Restlessness and mumbling, but no worse than usual."

He walked with her into the living room, lowering himself onto the couch and Jessica leaning into his side.

“How is this all related to your case?” Jessica asked.

Gil sighed, a whole lake of things he didn’t want to wade into. “I can’t talk about it.”

“This is my _son_ ,” Jessica persisted, her frustration and sleeplessness showing through. "The one who still has you stretching the truth to cover his ass," she tacked on. 

The side effect of upholding the kid's wishes, one of the few things Gil could control to contribute to his safety in his darker moments, was her wrath. At least he didn't detect any venom behind her words like there had been in the past. "Jess — "

"I'm not upset," she said firmly, rubbing his chest and squeezing his hand. "Super Gil as usual. Just tell me what's going on." Her mouth drooped from the straight line she fought to hold, the corner wavering.

He ran his hand up and down her upper arm in comfort and shared the smallest bit of information in an attempt to give her something that would help. "Keep the TV off,” Gil directed. “That started this.”

“Well you better end it,” she said with spunk — he could just _see_ the hand she’d normally have on her hip.

“I’ll tell them that. In that voice exactly,” Gil teased, looking to her face until she gave him an eye-roll. “Have a rest.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’ll take next shift listening.”

“You should go to bed. You have work in the morning,” Jessica countered.

“You were up all night, and I’m sure you didn’t take a nap.”

Gil kept looking at her until she caved, "Alright. Just for a bit.” Jessica yawned.

* * *


	7. Chapter 7

Malcolm was up and in a suit and tie sans jacket standing in Gil’s kitchen by 7 AM. Did he have one iota of understanding how much worry he put all of them through? That though his pendulum freely swung from one side to the other, they were all still somewhere along the path trying to catch up?

On the other hand, Gil knew Malcolm was aware, but he used work to try to steady himself and lessen the swing. Really didn’t help establish some boundaries that no, Malcolm should probably not go to work.

They’d been arguing about it in the kitchen the past half hour between Gil getting ready and making breakfast to the point he finally reached his wit’s end as to what would be best to keep him out of trouble.

“Bright, I don’t like this idea,” Gil’s frustration broke through his voice.

“You said that four times already. Let’s go,” Malcolm tried to rush him out the door.

“Conference room only. No scenes, no weapons,” Gil specified sternly. The reality was it was easier to keep an eye on him if he could see him.

“Nothing except work. I got it.” Malcolm bobbed his head.

“Let me get another cup of coffee for the road, and we’ll go,” Gil directed while pouring into a travel mug.

“I’ll go wait in the car.” Malcolm took the keys and his jacket and headed outside.

Either the kid or his mother were going to kill him.

* * *

Malcolm was alone at the conference room table when Dani entered.

“You good?” she asked, handing Malcolm a cup of tea, the citrusy scent curling between them. “Our favorite.”

“I see one person in this room right now.” Malcolm looked at her with a wan smile. “Well, two,” he added when he realized he forgot to count himself.

“I’m sorry this happened.” Her voice thrummed with compassion. She wished she could do something to help him. Something more than _here's a warm beverage — glad you're alive_.

Malcolm curled his hands around the cup. “Yeah. A lot of things happened. We can’t really change them.”

“Only how we react,” Dani returned, yet didn’t continue when both of their attention was drawn to the door.

“How you doin’ man?” JT asked, walking in.

“Okay. For once, I think I got more sleep than you,” Malcolm joked, poking fun at himself.

“Hey, congrats.” JT smiled.

“You headin' out?” Dani asked.

“After I give you an update.”

Gil joined them all, his mug in tow.

“The ad only started after midnight. It was the same each time, sometimes twice in an hour. A few different phrases, but no matter what path I went down, it always led to the bridge,” JT explained.

Gil nodded.

“I also had time to go through Parker’s history that came through from warrant,” JT shared. “This is what the provider’s records said they were shown,” JT said, setting one paper on the table. “This is the aggregator’s records.” He placed another paper. “And this is the actual served ad.”

“So the ads the victim got are only showing up in the records determining whether the ad actually got shown,” Gil recapped.

“Yes.”

“We need digital forensics,” Gil deduced.

“Yes. We also need Allie Barton’s records.”

“Give me a few minutes to get the requests in to Tech. JT, nice work. Go home,” Gil directed.

* * *

In between completing new feature requests and closing defects, Alex started looking through the session recording archives. Each recording captured how the viewer interacted with the ad flow, including what questions were presented, what choices they selected, and what ads they were shown. Useful in verifying new changes to the ad flow and troubleshooting viewer problems when providers reported them.

What had she done? Why was her boss so mad? Why did he threaten her job?

There wasn’t any reason the mistake should have been a big deal. What was he worried about?

She flipped over to the production archive.

 _Access denied_. Her lips quirked at the unexpected response.

Swapped to the data warehouse where they produced their daily metrics.

 _Session expired_.

Tried to login.

 _Access denied_. Her eyes narrowed.

Unease slithered into her belly with each subsequent rejection. Was she demoted? She wasn’t fired, as she hadn’t been locked out of her whole computer or paraded out of the building. What wasn’t she supposed to see?

She disconnected from WiFi, wary of the company having any more access to her computer. Jumped into local data dumps she had used for troubleshooting reports. But what was she even looking for?

“Misha?” She poked her head into his cube and he jumped, hitting a hotkey to close all his windows. Was he hiding something too? No — it was Misha — he was just skittish of people being in his space. She stopped her sudden paranoia from growing between them.

“What the — just Slack me,” he chided.

“Machine’s rebooting,” she lied. “Hey, do you know what that hold was for?”

“It said we’re not supposed to talk about it,” he reminded, eyes bouncing around seeing if anyone could overhear their conversation.

Alex rolled her eyes. Telling them they weren’t supposed to talk about something made it the hottest conversation topic.

“My buddy said any data related to this account.” He handed her a post-it from his drawer. _f30fc30bf7c58254_. Standard alphanumeric account ID to anonymize a viewer.

She motioned for another post-it and copied the account. “Thank you.” She handed the original back.

Back at her desk, she searched her local data for that account. Happened to be in their experimental group. She kept scrolling across the columns of data. Hits? 1.

Why did the police care about their success?

She looked for the other hits — this one was the most recent.

She popped her head back in Misha’s cube. “You’re gonna kill me,” he complained, his shoulders coming down from another jump.

“Can you get to session playbacks?” she asked.

“No — access is gone. Something with the hold.” He didn’t seem very worried about it. It was strangely a little comforting to know she hadn't been the only person affected.

“Do you know someone who can?”

“No.”

“Could you put our team test account into the experimental viewer group?” she requested. There had to be some way to find more information about what was going on. “My computer’s acting up.”

“You know we’re supposed to go through security — “

“I also know you do it with our other accounts all the time ‘cause it takes _days_ to hear back. Hook me up. The one I don’t have to wait ’til midnight,” she probed for exactly what she wanted.

“You owe me a case of Hiball at this rate,” he complained in return.

“You got it. I’m taking lunch. I’ll be back.”

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

Malcolm read Allie’s case file while Dani cued her findings on the monitor. Bipolar Type I. No immediate family.

“Allie sat down to watch a sitcom,” Dani said, getting their attention. “Got presented with three choices. Over five times across several hours.”

“So not a one time thing?” Malcolm asked.

“No. It’s consistent with Parker’s experience as well — the ad repeated.”

Dani played back the series of ads Allie was shown for the team and sat on the edge of the table near Gil.

_Which ad experience would you prefer?_

_Jon soothes acne, Jon challenges bipolar disorder, Jon kicks dry eyes._

An ad for a shiny new pill to help manage bipolar depression played and the commercial ended with everyone onscreen smiling.

“Allie had manic depression.” At their questioning glances, Malcolm added, “You’ll hear it called a handful of different things — bipolar disorder, bipolar depression, manic depression — all similar.”

_Which ad would you like to watch?_

_The long goodbye, Celebrating Emily, Darkest hours._

A family waved goodbye to a grandmother, and she was driven away to a nursing home. The commercial continued until it showed the same family scattering the woman’s ashes in the breeze.

“Allie lost her grandmother this year,” Dani shared. “Alzheimer’s.”

_Did you know loneliness may lead to an early death?_

That was wonderful to think about. Plenty of mammals passed after losing their mates. Would he die if he couldn’t find companionship after Eve? Was her persistent voice a sign he would never meet another? He twitched at the thought and attempted to hide his hand in his pocket. He reminded himself Gil was still around _and_ he had found another. Plus, Gil had hope for him. Perhaps things didn't need to be that grim.

“She lost the rest of her family in a car accident a few years back.”

_Did you take your pills?_

Malcolm instinctively checked his watch. He still had several more hours to go.

 _Take a few extra_.

The words floated off the monitor and pierced through his eyes, reaching the precise spot in his brain to trigger a wave of unenviable memories.

On days he wasn't sure he could trust himself, he'd counted and recounted each pill in every bottle. Calculated just how many he would need to take so there’d be no return by the time anyone found him. Dismissed the idea entirely when he considered the high probability of someone finding him and pumping his stomach before he could succumb.

The year he was too sick to leave New York to go to college, pills scattered around him on his kitchen floor like skittles, picking them up one by one between jittering fingers, reading blurry labels through streaming tears, and returning them to their respective bottles instead of his mouth. Asking the air if that was the bottom, the rocks in his stomach threatening to hold him under. Knowing his fingers held the power to make things better or worse.

He wasn’t trapped on that fucking floor, but the tie squeezing around his airway sure made him feel like it. The whisper of a suggestion was enough to turn his stomach with the notion that he’d contemplated it before, why did he think he was immune to considering it again? He wheezed pulling in another breath. Scrambled to loosen his tie.

Shit.

Dani looked at him with wide eyes. He must’ve said it aloud by accident.

“I need a minute.” He turned toward the door. “Just going to your office, Gil. I’ll be right back,” his words were rushed, gasps of air in between.

Gil hit the power button on the monitor, no longer interested in seeing the materials. He watched out the conference room blinds, checking on Malcolm in his office, memories barreling back to him.

The one night Jackie raced to Malcolm by herself, Gil at a stakeout. Malcolm hadn’t even tried him, _not wanting to bother him_. Jackie’s tears breaking through the phone that he needed to get there _immediately_ , Malcolm’s pleas in the background that it wasn’t necessary. Getting to them as fast as he could and quadruple-checking Malcolm’s statement he hadn’t taken anything, still not believing him.

Calling Jessica to meet them at the hospital after Malcolm’s quiet admission he’d consent to more inpatient treatment. Carrying him out of his loft when he wasn't fit to move himself, Jackie sitting with him in the backseat. Catching Jackie's eyes through the rearview mirror, her haunting gaze echoing his own thoughts — they could have lost him.

Arguing with Jessica when she was livid Jackie hadn’t called her sooner. First. She apologizing when she was sober. When she knew her son was alive because they'd been there to save him from himself _again_.

“ — of the warrant,” Dani’s voice punched through his trance when she touched his elbow.

“Hmm?” Stuck in the past, Gil hadn’t really followed a thing.

“Expand the warrant’s scope? I can put the call in,” Dani offered. “You already authorized it.”

Gil nodded. “Thank you.”

“They’re not just going to hand over all their data,” Dani commented.

He stumbled a moment, his mind elsewhere. “They will with that warrant,” he rebutted.

She shook her head, doubt appearing on her face, unsure they would get everything they needed. They still had no idea how Parker and Allie were connected, how Malcolm fit into the equation. Talking with the provider and aggregator always seemed to be a legal runaround. “Why these people?”

“They’re vulnerable.” Dare he say fragile when Malcolm could otherwise be so strong.

“How did they know that?”

“Find out,” Gil instructed, heading to his office to check on the kid that presently consumed all of his mind.

* * *

“I can’t figure out why,” Malcolm said when he heard Gil enter his office. He looked out the window between the links in search of some spot on the ground where the whole thing made sense.

“Sometimes we never do.”

“They’re hurting innocent people!” Malcolm raised his voice.

“Yes. It’s despicable,” Gil maintained a steady calm.

“She didn’t have someone to call. How did they know that? Why did they pick her?” he rattled out the questions quickly, his arms animated.

The unspoken _why did they pick me?_ was the elephant in the room. Malcolm’s shoulders rose and fell as he tried to even his breathing.

Gil broke the silence. “If you need some space — “

“Yes, it bothered me, but I can do my _job_ ,” Malcolm emphasized, clenching his fingers that attempted to betray him into a fist.

“Dani’s expanding the warrant to try to find the commonalities.”

Malcolm recognized Gil was choosing not to push at the history they'd both lived through. The saga of many other considerations beyond pills a lifetime ago. “I’ll go join her.”

Gil caught his red eyes as he turned around and walked out of the room.

* * *

They had just gotten their team test account with their upgrade to D-wing. Alex hadn’t even used it yet. _For pre-approved testing only_ , the instructions had said. Uh-huh. Did C-suite understand how technology worked?

She sipped at her coffee milk, earbuds in, a few blocks over from work. They had to give up their cellphones when in the office, so it was her only option to get back on the Internet.

She went to the mirror production version of their company site, the place where they could test things before providers picked them up.

_Which ad experience would you prefer?_

_Brittany takes a day trip, Brittany rides the rough terrain, Brittany in the city._

She selected _Brittany takes a day trip_. In closeups of a sports car’s wheels, over its hood, across its side, Brittany took a ride to a picturesque country cabin.

_Which ad would you like to watch?_

_Frederick takes Chile, Frederick takes Iceland, Frederick takes Japan._

She selected Iceland. She got to see the many different visuals the media team had prepared for the _Fire and Ice_ campaign.

_Did you know when Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull erupted, its ash disrupted air travel to Europe?_

That wasn’t part of the questions. She wet her lip considering how it would have changed.

_Do you like fire?_

Her eyes narrowed. That wasn’t either.

_Do you have matches?_

Tension clenched her jaw. What was this?

_Have you considered open flame as an effective method of suicide?_

She screeched, her coffee milk landing on the floor in a _sploosh_.

* * *

Malcolm and Dani worked at the conference table. Eve sat across from Malcolm. For hours in the quiet. Every time he thought she was gone, she’d be just more hidden somewhere — a shadow, a shape.

“I couldn’t bring myself to watch TV last night,” Dani admitted, drawing Malcolm’s attention.

“Probably a good idea.” He had zero interest either. There wasn’t a need to anymore.

“Woulda unplugged everything if I hadn’t gone to bed.” Dani laughed at herself.

“Paranoid?”

“A little.”

“Know a good vanquisher?” Malcolm asked.

Dani quirked her head.

“Never mind,” Malcolm said, his face pinkening, feeling silly for even trying to joke about it.

“I do know a good spot for pizza if you get hungry,” Dani offered.

Malcolm shook his head. “Let’s get through this.”

"You can talk about it, you know?"

"I'm good." He gave her a weak smile as if that could cover the erosive effects of everything else.

She left it alone as their friendship had grown accustomed to. Gabrielle's words creeping to the forefront of his mind, he didn't know if that was a good thing, or an enabler. Either way, it was his fault for teaching others to treat him with kid gloves.

Maybe he could share a little. “I’m taking a sedative. For a few days. Even though I don’t want to. Because the compounding effects of sleep deprivation might be worse than getting trapped in a nightmare. And the trapped thing hasn’t happened yet, so maybe that’s me being anxious? I don’t know. It's happened before,” he babbled, the faucet opening up once he had leaked a few words.

Dani seemed to consider his statements a moment before responding. “Do I need to prepare for zombie Bright?” she teased with a smirk. “’Cause I’ll warn you now, I _will_ fight you if you try to bite me.”

Her humor was a welcome salve that lifted his mood a bit. “The restraints will stop that.” He returned a lopsided smile.

“You know we’re here if you need anything,” she said more seriously. “Even if it’s you calling just to drone on about your favorite jello flavors because it’s better than the silence.”

He nodded. “Thanks.” Then added a joke, “Maybe Sunshine’s favorite foods next time.”

She bit her lip and cocked her eyes.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, drawing his attention away from Dani. One look at the screen, and he set it to _do not disturb_ so only calls from Gil, his mother, and the team could go through. He'd deal with the circus in the far, far future.

* * *

Gil didn’t see Malcolm most of the rest of the day, finding him later when it was time to take him home. At Malcolm’s request, they ended up back at his loft.

“How was your day?” Jessica asked Malcolm when they walked inside.

“Mother, it wasn’t my first day of kindergarten,” Malcolm complained, brushing off a hug. Gil removed his shoes and continued past them to go sit on a stool at the island.

“I wasn’t born yesterday, either,” she retorted, her voice dipping a register to the tone he knew meant she wouldn’t accept _no_ for an answer.

Too tired to fight, Malcolm gave in. “Uneventful. I worked in a conference room. I came home.” He moved his hands at his sides.

“I can make you dinner,” she offered, pointing toward the kitchen.

“I just want to sleep.” Malcolm looked over to the counter, finding Eve sitting next to Gil. “Everything’s clean upstairs. You both are welcome to it.”

“Goodnight,” Jessica called as Malcolm walked off to the bathroom. Then she moved to Gil and rested her hand on his shoulder. “Can I make you something?”

“Anything quick. I’m exhausted.”

Jessica opened the fridge to only find sparkling water and sighed. “I should’ve checked,” she scolded herself. The first cabinet she opened had a few cans. “Tomato?” she asked.

“Perfect.”

His eyes watched the floor where he and Jackie had huddled with Malcolm. Looked to the counter where Malcolm's pill bottles sat in a straight line. Followed the woman who had said some awful things to his wife in fear-laced anger, yet now cooked his dinner, shared his bed. Glanced at the ceiling reminding himself it had all been a _very_ long time ago and things were much different now.

He tried to smile when the steaming bowl slid in front of him, yet failed. Kept spooning soup into his mouth because it was such a distant past that wasn't worth dredging up again. Twirled his ring with his thumb pleading for help letting the whole day go. Ignored the hand at his back asking if he wanted to talk about it, the woman beside him offering unwavering support.

He headed off to bed as soon as he hit the bottom of the bowl, sleep pulling him under.

* * *

Eve crawled up onto Malcolm’s covers, her chill settling in behind him.

“You can’t stay tonight,” Malcolm spoke, pushing her hands away.

“Just until you fall asleep.” She tried to pull him closer.

“ _No_.” Malcolm rolled as far as he could in his restraints.

“But you love me,” she sounded like the worst version of a teenager whining for something a date wouldn’t give them.

“I do.” He swallowed, trying not to lose his resolve. “I need to let you go. I-I can’t lose me.”

“You’re right here, silly.” She smiled and laughed it off.

Real Eve wasn’t anything like the illusion he had been living with. His mind had warped her so far, he could hardly recognize her.

He closed his eyes, willing the woman he cared for to remain a positive warmth in his memory, and his mind to leave the wraith behind.

The chill crept further down his back, up his neck.

Maybe he needed another blanket.

* * *

Gil shot up in bed, his face covered in sweat, pulse hammering in his neck, breathing heavy. By appearance, he could have run a marathon. His eyes darted around the room, finding Jessica's concerned eyes where she sat up beside him.

"He's downstairs — he's fine — I just checked on him," Jessica assured, her hand on his upper arm.

Gil ran the bottom of his t-shirt over his face. The nightmare disappeared into the darkness, yet its exertion remained.

"Water?"

He nodded, and she retrieved a glass of water from the adjoining bathroom.

Gil took several gulps of the liquid, the chill soothing his throat, and set the rest on the nightstand. Had he yelled? Did he wake the kid? Somehow night two of sedatives had been agreed to — did he ruin that?

“He’s fine — asleep,” she reassured, sitting beside him and rubbing his back.

He sighed, pressing his fingers against his eyelids.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked in the same tone they both used with Malcolm.

"I don't even remember,” he admitted, the details gone but their hold on his heart remaining. "All this just...brought back a lot of the past."

"All the times I didn't do my best and you did,” her remorseful honesty came out in the cover of darkness.

So she’d been thinking about it as well. Had she slept? “Jess — "

"It's the _truth_ ,” she emphasized with her hand squeezing his thigh. She took a moment to gather a breath and added, “I don't want to relive it all either. It was a long time ago."

"Yes." At least they both agreed not to dig it up.

“I thought he was better,” she said quietly, more stricken. Her other hand clutched her face, and he reached up to find slight wetness from escaped tears. He pulled her into his chest, soothing his fingers through her hair.

"He is. But you know demons don't stay silent forever."

"Yeah — the biggest one has my son on speed dial,” she retorted, revealing her signature spark that brought him some comfort that she was alright.

"He's sending his calls to voicemail,” he shared. “I can't get him to block him, but it's an improvement."

"Progress." Jessica stilled his hand where he hadn’t even realized he’d been playing with his ring, folding her hand into his instead. "You miss her,” she stated, running her thumb across the back of his hand.

"Yeah." All the time, but some moments pulled the longing to the forefront for its monologue. He swallowed. "She was always better with him."

"You don't give yourself enough credit."

"You don't either.” His free hand rubbed her cheek, confirming more tears hadn’t escaped. “We all helped him. Together."

She thankfully seemed content not to argue, drawing shapes in his shirt. "What would she tell him?"

He took a deep breath, recognizing her question for what it was — compassion. “To take care of Sunshine. 'Cause when he remembers someone else needs him, he takes better care of himself." He kissed the back of her hand. "To take a break — " He smiled a little and gave a sad chuckle. "But we all know that's not gonna happen."

"Sometimes I look at him and only see the ten-year-old kid.” She gave a huff of a smirk. “He still waves his little arms.“

“And is equally hard to chase after." He rubbed her back. "As much as we give him a hard time, he makes better choices now. Even asked for you as soon as I got to him."

She tipped her head up toward his, meeting his eyes. "A new record."

"Hey,” he said, holding her chin and stopping her from falling back toward self-deprecating. He captured her lips, sharing a long, slow comfort that tasted of sugary chapstick. When they parted, he rested his forehead against hers. "He's alive. That's what matters to me."

"Mmm," she agreed. "I've never given you a proper thank you."

"You've never needed to." He tucked her hair behind her ear.

"Or an apology." At Gil's head shake, she added, "I'm still sorry for hurting you both."

"All the past." He cupped her cheek, running his finger back and forth near her ear. "Evolve." After several moments of neither one of them continuing the subject, he asked, "You alright for a few?" At her nod, he continued, "I'm gonna shower and go sit with him a bit."

"Gil — "

"I'm not gonna be able to fall back asleep." He was still worried about the kid regardless of how tired he was.

"I'll go downstairs and wait for you. Maybe I can convince your brain otherwise if I hold you on the couch."

He kissed her forehead in agreement and headed off to the bathroom.

* * *


	9. Chapter 9

The team was showing wear at the edges. Gil clung to his coffee mug like a lifeline. JT was alert, but the day of lost sleep had carved bags under his eyes. Dani fidgeted with her rings as if some special alignment of them would unlock an enchantment to zap the exhaustion. Malcolm kept looking around, counting how many people were with him. Gil caught his eyes, and Malcolm forced himself to steady his gaze on Dani while she talked.

“The aggregator gave us everything in pieces, so Tech’s been having a time putting the puzzle together. They’ve been working on this all night.”

“We’ll be sure to thank them,” Gil spoke.

“Over a thousand people have gotten these ads in the past two weeks,” Dani shared the findings. “All in New York. Three of them dead.”

“Who’s the third?” JT asked.

“Brian Pierce. Flagged as potential arson on Staten Island.” She read off her paper, “Unemployed. Chief hobby video game streaming. Drowning in credit card debt.”

“A thousand people?” Gil repeated, shocked by the magnitude of what they were dealing with and at the same time supposing it could have been many, many more.

“Good thing their algorithm isn’t doing very good,” JT commented.

“This a word we’re gonna use all the time now?” Malcolm questioned with a trace of humor.

“Algorithm,” JT said it again.

“Algorithm,” Malcolm repeated it back.

“Algorithm,” Dani mimicked them.

“Okay, okay,” Gil stopped their game, his tone sharing he wasn’t in the mood after many sleepless nights keeping an eye on Malcolm.

“Give me a second and I’ll pull up what Brian saw,” Dani said.

Malcolm read her paper while she cued up the monitor. When she started it, he narrated, “You’re Brian. Into action shows and down on your luck.”

Gil gave him a look and he stopped the talk track. "Do you wanna leave the room for this?" Gil asked.

Malcolm shook his head.

_Which ad experience would you prefer?_

_Brittany takes a day trip, Brittany rides the rough terrain, Brittany in the city._

The monitor showed Brian choose _Brittany takes a day trip_. In closeups of a sports car’s wheels, over its hood, across its side, Brittany took a ride to a picturesque country cabin.

_Which ad would you like to watch?_

_Frederick takes Chile, Frederick takes Iceland, Frederick takes Japan._

Brian had selected Iceland. “Why Iceland?” Malcolm wondered.

“We don’t know yet,” Dani admitted with a sigh.

_Did you know when Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull erupted, its ash disrupted air travel to Europe?_

_Do you like fire?_

_Do you have matches?_

_Have you considered open flame as an effective method of suicide?_

“Subtle,” JT commented.

Gil’s phone buzzed and he looked at it. His boss. Maybe they finally had enough to get the feds' attention. “I’ve gotta take this.” He left the room and went into his office.

“Plane ticket sales, some other sort of purchase records, and gaming history tell them he has a lot of time to spend at home,” Dani summed up what Tech suspected so far.

“Eve’s death was in the news. Everything about my family has been — wouldn’t be hard to guess I have mental health issues,” Malcolm said. “I’m not quiet about it.”

“You’re not quiet about anything,” JT returned in jest and Malcolm smiled.

“All the deaths in Allie’s family would have been in obituaries or death records,” Dani continued.

“You can’t just look up she was bipolar — that’s a HIPPA violation,” JT pointed out.

“Check her social media,” Malcolm suggested. People were much more outspoken about their mental health now. All health.

“Firearms records for Parker,” JT added. “Also wasn’t his first attempt.” He cracked his knuckles. “So they’ve collected all this data on people and they’re using it to suggest they kill themselves?”

“Seems like it,” Dani agreed, having spent plenty of time looking at the data herself.

“That’s sick,” JT released his disgust. “Who condones this bullshit?”

Malcolm raised an eyebrow at him.

“He’s trying out the supportive thing." Dani tapped Malcolm with the case file from the table.

“Don’t make it weird,” Malcolm returned to Dani.

* * *

Alex called the ethics hotline listed on the back of her badge. Explained the situation. Was asked to go to the A-tower. The tippiest tip of the top of the building in a section called employee services to see Myra.

For as shiny as the space was, the experience was abhorrent. All that time spent dreaming how to rise through the ranks, and Alex was left with a rancid taste in her mouth. She wished she had her coffee milk to cling to.

“You’re not listening,” Alex complained, trying to make her point yet another time. “This company is publishing advertisements that are noncompliant with FTC regulations.”

“What justification do you have to offer?” Myra rephrased the same words she had repeated over and over like Alex didn’t have any education. Not that one was even needed to understand the sentiment.

“Screenshots.” She bit back the urge to enunciate every syllable.

“Let me see your phone.”

“They’re not allowed in the building.” Everyone knew that. Surely Myra in employee services did.

“You’re locker…” Myra tapped away at her keys. “419 downstairs?”

“Yes.”

“It’ll be right up.” Myra smiled. Of course. Just like the company had access to everything on her computer, they also had access to all her property on the premises. _Lock_ -er. Right. A false sense of security.

The phone didn’t go into Alex’s hands. It went straight to Myra.

“Unlock this,” Myra directed.

“I’ll take that,” Alex requested, her hand outstretched. She couldn’t believe the nerve of this woman.

“Unlock it,” Myra demanded, holding the phone out, yet not letting it go.

Alex yanked it away. “You can’t make me do that.” She unlocked the phone and pulled up the image, facing it to Myra. “This is the proof. You can see it from there.”

“You need to surrender your phone. You took illegal pictures of company property,” Myra’s tone shifted in light of the evidence.

“I’m not comfortable with the way I’m being treated.” The employee handbook said they were a harassment-free workplace. This behavior fell in there somewhere, right? Myra hadn’t said any words that invoked protected class they droned on about in orientation videos — maybe it wasn’t? Was there anything she could do to stop this?

“Surrender your phone, and you can keep working here,” Myra continued on her trek for the only thing she cared about in the room, Alex be damned. Employee Services? More like Corporate Services.

“You think I want to _work_ here?” Alex hadn’t planned on yelling. She tried on the new volume for size like a fledgling stretching her wings for the first time.

“Surrender your phone, and we can avoid calling the police,” Myra gave an ultimatum.

Alex set her phone on the desk. She’d have a tough time getting employed again if she had an arrest record.

“Do you have anything else to report?” Myra asked with a smile. She could take that pasted visage and shove it up her ass with the rest of A-tower.

“I’m going back to work.” Alex stood and left, walking into the hallway.

No one around. Dozens of feet before even approaching the next person’s office. Bright light from full-length windows illuminating the whole floor.

She hadn’t planned on grabbing a marker from the swath of whiteboards. But it was there.

She would _not_ be silenced.

She furiously wrote out SUICIDE CENTRAL backwards in two rows of gigantic letters across the windows, clear for everyone to see from the street. A beacon shining _there’s trouble, trouble_. No one was around to notice. She fled the building.

* * *

"How's Bright?" Tally asked when JT hugged her from behind after emerging from a shower.

"Managing." He dipped his face into her neck, inhaling her scent, coconut from her lotion. His wife and their prospective Tarmel hovered under his fingers. Home.

"We could have him for dinner one of these nights. Get him out of his loft,” Tally suggested.

"Maybe." JT rubbed her growing stomach. "What would you like tonight?"

"We still have crescent rolls."

"Pigs in a blanket it is." He kissed her neck and directed, "Go sit."

Tally headed into the living room and put her feet up, watching television while she waited for him.

JT got the first tray of pigs in a blanket rolled and into the oven. Making extra for leftovers was an easy way to keep the peace, so he started the second, the repetitive motion now like clockwork.

“In midtown today, suicide central was written on the side of a building,” came from the television, drawing JT’s attention. “It’s owned by advertisement firm, Personalyze, popularly used online. What’s going on inside? Learn more at 11.”

JT slid the second tray into the oven, washed his hands, and set the timer. He pulled out his phone to look up the news story, finding a photo of a glass tower with huge scribbled letters.

Someone inside was being more transparent than the company.

Someone knew.

“The timer, babe,” Tally called, snapping him out of his focus on the small screen to the persistent _beep — beep — beep_.

JT pulled their dinner out of the oven before it could burn.

* * *


	10. Chapter 10

Dani tapped her thumb on the steering wheel, the glacial crawl of traffic making its way under her skin. She didn’t want to be the one slacking when everyone was putting in long hours to try to connect the ad activity back to the aggregator.

“The building, now deemed suicide central, has been occupied by the advertisement firm, Personalyze, since 2013. They’ve been involved in many campaigns, from _just how do you like to warm your cookies?_ to elections,” the news blared from the radio.

She called JT. “Have you heard this?”

“Yeah — I got a bulletin out. Hotline’s on the lookout,” JT informed her.

“Whistleblower?”

“Maybe.”

Dani looked at her surroundings. “I’m 15, 20 out.”

“Coffee’s ready when you get here.”

* * *

There wasn’t enough coffee to fill Gil’s mug. Between watching out for the kid, assuring his…the kid’s mother he was okay, and trying to close an unwinding case, Gil was fried. The caffeine was more turning his stomach than keeping him awake at this point.

Would he have a chance of getting more sleep that evening? Would they be at Malcolm’s, or Jessica’s, or his place? Would it even matter? Until this case was finished, until Malcolm was closer to his managing self, Gil wasn’t going to get a restful sleep. Until everything settled, he didn’t have the capacity to think about what he and Jessica were calling each other now. He rubbed his hand over his eyes in an effort to wake himself up.

An officer knocked at Gil’s door, poking his head in. “We have a hit on the vandalism complaint from the aggregator,” he indicated, looking at Gil expectantly.

Gil waved him in.

“Woman came in, admitted it — kid, 22/23, _maybe_. Thought you might want Tarmel or Powell to talk to her. She’s downstairs — I had nowhere else to put her.”

“Yeah — we got it. Thanks,” Gil said, already out of his chair. 

Gil sped out of his office to find his team.

Hope. They had hope of a witness as to what might have been going on inside the company. Who knew where it would lead, but it was a person instead of the reams of data Tech tussled with. People, Gil understood. Technobabble of connections? He had to rely on Tech, and they were buried, analyzing what little they could retrieve from the company.

Perhaps talking with a human being would move things along.

* * *

Dani ran downstairs to one of the small interrogation rooms where the officers had the woman waiting. Why didn’t they just bring her upstairs? The detectives had a little bit more freedom — maybe they were just following directives.

“I’m Alex,” the woman announced as soon as Dani opened the door, then looked at the table. She fidgeted, evidently a little bit nervous, her wide blue eyes taking the whole experience in. Probably her first time in a police station.

“Hi. Detective Powell.” Dani sat across from her.

Alex curled a lock of her auburn hair behind her ear. “The company I work for has been engaging in behaviors that are against FTC regulations, and I tried to go through ethics, but they didn’t listen,” she blurted out, telling the punchline of her story in one shot.

“What do you do there, Alex?” Not a manager, not communications…

“I’m an engineer. I build things. Or, I did. I’m pretty sure I’m fired at this point,” she said under her breath.

“What about the vandalism complaint?” The back of Dani’s mind nudged, was that _really_ why she was down here? She tried to give the officers the benefit of the doubt that it was the only quiet place available.

“It’s whiteboard marker. They should've realized they could just wash it off by now. I had to get someone’s attention.” Dani could hear the eye-roll even though it didn’t show up on Alex’s face.

“Attention about what?”

“D-wing. The _death_ -wing.” Alex’s stare lasered through her. “I think they’re running experiments to see if people could be driven to extreme behaviors like suicide,” she shared. Bingo. Dani kept her glee inside.

“How do you know?”

“I took screenshots. Sent them to my home email. If I could login a second, I could get them for you,” Alex offered.

“We have many questions about how the ads work. Would you be willing to stick around a bit and help explain?” Dani asked.

“Sure. Could I get a water or something?” Alex requested.

“Yep, will getcha a bottle. Come with me upstairs.” Dani led Alex out of the room, a renewed energy in her steps.

* * *

Malcolm and JT watched Dani talk with Alex from behind the two-way mirror, having chosen the setup so Alex wouldn’t need to face many people at once. “She’s one person going up against a corporation,” Dani pointed out, “give her some space.”

Alex was a frequent viewer of the table and what seemed like a point just over Dani’s shoulder. She fidgeted with a water bottle, often taking a small sip when she wasn’t talking. “This is technically in violation of my NDA, but — “

“You can have a lawyer present,” Dani offered again.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” Alex looked straight at Dani. Her common behavior whenever she was passionate about something. An explanation, fact, moving eye contact. Something she wanted to be heard, dead on.

“Lawyer?”

“No.” Sip. Thumb under the label.

“Can you share what your company does? I’m no techie, so try to keep it simple,” Dani requested. JT had the best read out of all of them, but they could grasp it enough to get by.

“We specialize in personalization. Give viewers choice in the viewing experience, give advertisers the ability to drill in to specific target markets,” Alex explained. The tighter the funnel, the more money for the advertiser. Another detail courtesy of his sister.

“Standard ad firm,” Malcolm commented, choosing to talk instead of getting lost down a path of wondering how she was doing sitting in a prison cell.

“With some majorly substandard practices,” JT returned.

“We write recommenders — people who like x also like y. Use open source data and gather or pay for news, social, purchasing patterns, watch behaviors, search history, etcetera to drive viewer behavior.” Alex shrugged and bit her lower lip. “Or at least that’s what’s on the company mission statement.”

“Medical data?” Dani asked.

“Social, search, purchases.” Thumb pecking at the seam, peeling back the plastic.

“Criminal?”

“News, social.” Another sip. “It’s all anonymized. We never see the people or final questions being asked. Just the result: 0 or 1. False or true,” she added in explanation. “Our hit rate is pretty awful.”

“Most advertising is,” Malcolm commented. He couldn’t list a single product he’d bought because of it. But he had been affected…

“That’s good for us,” JT reminded, pulling Malcolm back in.

“How many hits?” Dani asked.

“Three so far,” Alex shared. Consistent with what they had found.

“Can you tell us anything about what they were trying to accomplish with these experiments?” Anything that would provide motive for doing something so malicious?

Alex shook her head. “I have no idea.”

“Shit.” Malcolm kicked the wall.

JT jumped and put a hand on Malcolm’s upper arm, advising him to, “Stop.”

“I’m good.” Malcolm held both his hands up and backed away.

“Go take a walk,” JT suggested, his voice firmer like it was a directive he’d enforce if Malcolm refused.

Malcolm nodded and exited the room first, JT following behind him.

* * *

JT found Gil stuck in his office like he had been all morning, bags heavy under his eyes. As much as he knew Gil wouldn’t want to hear it, one of them would have to say something. It was a coin toss between him and Dani, all of them already hovering around Malcolm.

At his knock, Gil held up a finger and waved him in to sit while he finished his phone call.

“We can transition. Yes, the team has availability. We need that cease and desist, though.” Who was he talking to? Brass? Feds? Most of his words went through JT, but he couldn’t help interpreting some of them first.

Gil’s hand rubbed across his brow, seemingly trying to erase his frustration.

“I’ve got Tech with mountains of data sources they used to put this together.” Gil covered the phone and addressed JT, “What’d you get from the employee?”

“Confirms the practice. Can explain how it works,” JT said quickly. A massive understatement for speed — she was a treasure trove of information.

Gil returned to the phone. “We have an employee who can speak to what they were doing.”

Gil shook his head, the tendons at his neck tightening.

“I don’t _care_ if the algorithm is proprietary or if it’s on the screens of the whole _galaxy_. We need to shut them down.”

Gil’s voice kept rising. JT was not used to his boss being so frustrated.

“ _Shut. the. ads. down_ ,” Gil stressed every word. “Before someone else dies. That’s all we need.” 

Gil’s hand spread away from his body, cocked to snap if the answer came back negative.

“Thank you.” 

He hung up and dropped his phone on his desk in a thunk.

“Feds are coming in,” Gil shared with JT. “Finally.” An organization they needed to turn the case over to in order to cut through the runaround and file appropriate charges.

“Only thing she doesn’t know is why they’re doing it,” JT shared. “She can describe every bit of the rest.”

“Good. That’s good.” Gil ran his hand over his goatee.

“You need sleep, boss,” JT said, biasing the coin toss to himself.

“When we get this done,” Gil returned, taking another sip of his coffee.

* * *


	11. Chapter 11

Jessica glanced from the couch to the floor on repeat. Her… _Gil_ was dead on his feet, leaning against her as they stood in her living room. Whatever they were calling each other, they’d talk about it when there were far fewer things on their minds.

“Gil, just sleep,” Jessica urged, brushing his hair with her fingers.

“I want to help you, then I’ll go,” he said, his voice gravelly with exhaustion.

“There’s these two swatches.” She set both of them on the floor in front of the living room couch.

“They both look…taupe, or a bit ivory. One has more swirls than the other. Both would look nice in here,” Gil shared.

“Spoken like a diplomat. Pick one,” she requested. She needed a decision maker, not a people pleaser.

He toed the one with less swirls.

“Step on it — see if you like the feel,” she directed, rubbing the small of his back.

He complied, testing them both. “Still like this one.”

“Okay — I’ll get it scheduled.” As soon as she could. Now that she had started the project, she just wanted it done.

He turned to her instead of stepping back beside her, his fingers brushing both of her sides. “Do you wanna pick a day to go see her?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Jessica responded, meeting his eyes, then looking to his chest. She hadn’t been avoiding a visit with Ainsley per se, but she hadn’t exactly been knocking at the gate either.

“Come lay down with me?” Gil asked, kissing her forehead. Always so gentle, sharing touches as a form of connection, of comfort.

“Sure. You go on ahead — I’ll be right up.” She squeezed his hands as he pulled away.

She lingered at the living room couch, a room she hadn’t frequented since _the aftermath_. Thought of her daughter spending her days in prison and wondered where she had gone wrong. Realized for the first time that maybe, just maybe, with Malcolm, she had done something right.

 _Sweet dreams, dear_ , she texted Malcolm, still wary about leaving him alone for the first night.

 _Love you, mom — goodnight_ , he replied, her lips clamping together to push back a swelling stream of emotion.

* * *

Malcolm’s loft was too quiet without Gil and his mother around. As much as he needed space, he missed conversation in his home.

“We figured it out,” Malcolm spoke to Sunshine from his perch on the floor.

She was huddled underneath her cover for the night, but talking to her provided the same soothing effect.

“Spoke with the first investigator this afternoon. And they’re coming back tomorrow to work with us,” Malcolm updated her, turning his whiskey round and round in his glass.

“That’s great, Malcolm,” Eve praised, sitting down beside him.

“ _Eve —_ “ Malcolm urged, unable to find a way to put her out of his mind.

“I’m just here to help you sleep,” she soothed, resting her head on his shoulder. “Or you can call Gil and your mom if you want.”

He did not. Gil was dying on his feet, and as much as he welcomed the comfort of both of their presence, his mother was starting to get on his nerves.

“I’ll go when you’re well rested. I promise.” She kissed his collarbone and wound her arms into his shirt.

“Okay,” the wobble of tears made it into his voice as they traced down his face. “One more night.”

She was gone in the morning, only ever-present chill left in her wake. He tried to clear his mind of the sedative’s residual fuzz by rubbing his eyes, yet shapes and shadows lingered at the edges of his vision. Perhaps _gone_ was more relative, like _for the time being_.

* * *

With time and some of Alex’s advice, Tech was able to dig further into the data. A massive matching exercise, and now that they had an employee to serve as the data dictionary, interpreting it went faster.

“That explains why there wasn’t any press on this,” Dani commented, looking over the last of the reports to hand over to the feds.

“What’s that?” Malcolm asked, reaching for the report but getting his hand swatted away.

“Most people never saw the ads.” Dani turned the report around. “Clickthrough metrics show the questions largely went unanswered and the calculated best response got autoplayed.”

“Like they were sleeping,” JT caught on to her thought process.

“Yep. Episodes kept playing on and on until the _are you watching?_ screen triggered,” Dani shared.

“I don’t think I’ve ever gotten that,” Malcolm commented, flipping through the pages.

“You’re an insomniac who doesn’t do TV,” JT pointed out the obvious reason he hadn’t.

“You can tell Tally it’s a good thing you fall asleep during shows,” Dani directed to JT. Malcolm looked up to the two of them sharing one-up glances challenging each other.

“You caught me at my apartment napping _one time_ and have never let me live it down,” JT complained.

“What partners are for, right?” She nudged his arm with her elbow.

“It’s gonna be awhile before I wanna watch anything,” Malcolm admitted, being open with the team.

“Same here, bro. Tally’s show’s stacking up and I’m not gonna be able to avoid it pretty soon,” JT revealed.

“I didn’t plug my speakers back in yet,” Dani disclosed.

“Gift for all of you,” Gil said from the door, none of them realizing he had been listening in. They turned their heads to him awaiting his response. “Couple months of ad-free tier on me.” When they continued to look at him, he added, “On another platform.”

“That’s nice of you,” JT shared, “but how ‘bout we go for drinks instead.”

JT looked to Malcolm and Dani and they both nodded in agreement. Gil glimpsed his watch. “Alright, finish transitioning that, and we’ll head outta here a little early. I’ll get the first two rounds.”

“Thanks,” they answered in chorus.

* * *

A few days later, Gil and Malcolm left the precinct together and picked up Jessica to have dinner as a family.

“You two close a case and decide to take _me_ to dinner?” Jessica remarked, perusing the menu.

“Handed off, not really closed,” Malcolm corrected, looking at everything but food.

“Whatever,” Jessica ignored him.

“Tech CEO Dri Mendikov arrested today over Personalyze’s FTC ad violations that drove people to suicide,” came over the television, drawing the men’s attention. The dark-haired man onscreen appeared a little older than Malcolm, a smirk of arrogance on his face even as he was led away in handcuffs. “We wanted to see if we could,” the man said, sending a chill down Malcolm’s spine.

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should,” Jessica commented under her breath.

Both Gil and Malcolm remained glued to the screen. “Allegedly, Mendikov’s experiments sought to explore people’s willingness to harm others,” the report continued.

“That was your case,” Jessica realized.

“They wanted to weaponize people?” Malcolm commented to Gil.

“What’s your psychology say about that?” Gil returned.

"He should check the temperature in hell,” Malcolm grumbled in disgust.

Gil rubbed the back of Malcolm’s neck, suggesting, "Let's eat dinner." They returned their attention to Jessica.

“This is the last time I let you two take me to a restaurant with TVs,” Jessica scoffed, giving them both a diminishing glare.

“It’s a sports bar.” Gil shrugged, not showing any care that it didn’t meet her typical standards. “The only thing I could get him to agree to eat was chicken. They have good chicken.”

Jessica gave a half smile. “Trying to get me to back down with my son?”

“Trying to see we all enjoy this.” Gil raised an eyebrow that Malcolm smirked at.

Jessica took off her heels under the table and ran one foot up Gil’s calf. “Okay.”

He smiled back at her.

Malcolm shook his head at the two of them, smiling.

* * *

“JT, hold the pads firmer so I don’t kick your stomach,” Dani complained.

“Is your title Sensei?” he returned as she threw a round kick into the pads at his side.

He was saved from her response by the timer going off, signaling she should rotate. She gave him a side-eye dirty look as she jogged to her next partner.

“Hello, husband,” Tally greeted, appearing in front of him with a smirk.

He augmented the routine to punches to accommodate her pregnancy. “I don’t know how you two talked me into this,” JT groused as her punches pattered into the pads. A conversation over team drinks after their transitioned case had turned into Dani and Tally deciding to go kickboxing and inviting JT along. Which was really more Tally telling JT he was definitely going with them once they got home.

“It’s healthy for me, and you like it," she reminded him. She dropped one of her punches toward his stomach, his eyebrow cocking as he was forced to move one of the pads.

“You couldn’t have picked something more low impact?”

“You crampin’ this?” she asked, putting a little more heft behind her punches.

“Nope.” He had learned that lesson a _long_ time ago. "Just been awhile since I've done this."

"So it's a you thing. Tired?"

"I'm fine. Glad you're happy." It'd help them both sleep well.

The buzzer rang, indicating she could rotate again.

By the end of the class, they were all drenched in sweat.

“Better workout than TV, huh?” Dani commented to Tally.

Tally nodded. “Can do this my whole pregnancy as long as I keep augmenting. More my speed than yoga."

JT looked at his teammate and wife scheming to continue the sessions.

“You’re just outnumbered,” Tally commented, the tip of her tongue teasing him from the corner of her mouth.

“I’ve already accepted that," JT conceded. When their prospective Tarmel arrived it'd be two against one. Going kickboxing meant he couldn't hold his wife or nap as early as if they had watched a show, but spending the extra energy would bring a well-earned sleep.

“It could have been axe throwing with Bright instead,” Dani reminded him.

"At least I did not lose fingers." With Malcolm, it was a _very_ real possibility.

"Just twice a week, babe," Tally negotiated. "Like you used to."

"I think we can manage." He didn't _not_ like it. It was just different from their usual routine. Maybe a new one.

They all split up to change before they headed home, ignoring the news on the small television in the lobby.

* * *

Alex held the sweating comfort of an iced latte, idly sipping at the straw. It gave her something to remain occupied while she waited.

“I didn’t think you would come,” Alex commented to Misha, who was sitting in the chair across from her at the café. The two of them actually talking face to face. Very…odd for him.

An eight-pack of grapefruit Hiball rested on the table in front of him. “Thank you,” he spoke.

“You want something?” Alex waved in the direction of the barista. “My treat.”

Misha gestured his hand, brushing away the idea. “You’re kind of a big deal now, huh?”

“No.” She took a pull from the straw. “Trying to find work.”

“I know folks over in banking if you want,” he offered.

“It’s okay — I’m thinking less corporate.” More use your powers for good, less evil.

“Work’s been quiet without you.”

Alex gaped at him in disbelief. “You. Complaining of quiet.”

Misha shrugged.

She took another sip. “Wanna see this puzzler I made?”

“Show me.”

She turned her new phone to him, cracked around the edges.

* * *

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> IF you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). https://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org. Emergency: 911 For Global Crisis Centers: https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/


End file.
